


In Search of Something

by tisfan



Series: Imagine Tony and Bucky 2018 [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Arc Reactor, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, M/M, Oral Sex, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, To Be Continued, Torture, accidental nudity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 45,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13406901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: After the Fall of SHIELD, Tony Stark is in hiding, pretending to be a simple merchant and mechanic of mechanical wonders. When the Fist of Hydra shows up, asking for help...As Tony would say...Shoot first, ask questions later.





	1. For Want of Aether

**Author's Note:**

> Dear readers, I am conducting an experiment, so to speak, and I beg you will indulge me. After having this prompt in my queue for quite a while and not being able to come up with a story, I found myself, this weekend, unravelling the knot and coming up with what will probably end up being a 60 – 90,000 word piece of Steampunk/Noir style WinterIron fiction. That being said, I don’t know that there’s a lot of demand for a Steampunk Noir story.
> 
> Consider this first chapter to be the pilot episode of a television show, so to speak. If there’s enough demand, I’ll write more. – tisfan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was, absolutely, the man Bucky was looking for. Anthony Stark. Bucky hadn’t been sure before; the few daguerreotypes that Bucky had seen of the man were blurred -- Tony Stark was not a man to stay still long enough to get a good tintype made. But there was no doubt, now. The few files Bucky had liberated spoke of the artificial heart, what it looked like. What it could do.
> 
> He opened his mouth to say so, but found himself giving voice to a more pressing question. “Why am I naked?”
> 
> Tony scoffed. “What did you expect? I was checking you for weapons and you’re carrying a god damn arsenal."

“That might well be the ugliest velocipede I’ve ever seen,” someone said.

Tony Stark, genius, inventor, rake, philanthropist, nearly spat out a mouthful of coffee. He hadn’t heard anyone come into the shop, although that wasn’t surprising. He was often lost in his own headspace when working, and he’d completed the amplification process for his Amberola a few weeks ago, which made the musical cylinders in his workshop particularly loud. He’d been replaying the Tchaikovsky recording several times, testing with a diaphragm sensor to measure the volume of cannon fire, to see if it was actually replicable at anything remotely resembling the normal level of sound.

“Probably good it’s on commission then,” Tony said. He wiped his hands off on a rag and came around the side of the workbench to look at the interloper. “What brings you to my humble ‘shop?”

There wasn’t anything humble about Tony’s shop and he damn well knew it, but at the same time, he was expected to keep up the generic merchant pater. Too many customers walked away and people might start wondering if he was actually running a shop, and if he wasn’t, what was he, instead, doing?

Tony couldn’t afford some snotty government official poking into his business, so… playing the humble inventor.

“Lookin’ for the son of Maria Carbonell?”

 _Yeah, fantastic_. Tony reached under the bench and pulled out one of his gauntlets, being as casual as possible in attaching the connections to the tubes in his sleeve rig.

He leaned against the side of his work bench, crossing his legs at the ankle and presenting an utterly relaxed front to the newcomer.

Dark, ragged hair tucked under a fisherman’s cap, the man dressed like he was carrying his entire wardrobe on his back; undershirt, two button downs over it, a vest, a jacket and an overcoat. Despite the layers, he wasn’t sweating as far as Tony could tell. The evenings were starting to get cool, it was early October after all, but the afternoons were still fine. Perhaps the so-called customer hadn’t heard of suitcases.

Tony smirked. “There’s a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time,” he said, thoughtfully. “Who’s been name-dropping?” The arc-reactor finished charging the gauntlet repulsor with a dull whump. It was an old password, compromised almost a year ago when SHIELD was disbanded. Tony had managed to stay out of the crossfire, had hidden and protected a number of SHIELD’s agents, but it had been a mess.

The man jerked, as if he’d heard the repulsor whine, but the sound was nearly impossible to detect under the music and banging that went on in Tony’s shop. Or should have been. But even if he had, so very few people knew what the repulsor’s signature sounded like, and those who did weren’t usually in a shape to report it.

“Word gets around,” the man said. He raised his chin enough to look at Tony through ragged cut hair. He had eyes as gray as storm clouds and the sort of luminescent beauty that belonged in a painting by the old masters. Tony was somewhat of an expert on beauty in both the male and female forms.

How had that man wandered the streets and not drawn abundant attention? Just the sort that Hydra would send after Tony, if they were going to send someone. Knowing what they did of Tony’s eye and appetites. Knowing what everyone knew about Tony’s rake-hell lifestyle.

“Does it.” That wasn’t even a question.

The man could be hiding any number of weapons under that coat. Blades or guns or even some of the smaller, delicate explosives. He licked his lips nervously, eyes flicking in Tony’s direction and then away. “I can pay you.”

“I’m sure you can,” Tony said. “The question remains -- who sent you, and what do you want?”

“No one sent me,” the man said. “I’m here because you might b’ the only person in the world who can help me who ain’t gonna stick me back in a cage.”

“Fascinating as undoubtedly your story is, and pitiful as your plight,” Tony said, raising a hand and letting the repulsor show, “I think you should leave. I… don’t usually have the patience to ask more than once.”

“Wait, wait! Please,” the man said, and raised his left hand hastily, as if he was going to a sleeve-clutch weapon or to defend himself. The motion was accompanied by the distinct sound of gears and plates clicking together. Tony blinked; the man didn’t look like one of Vanko or Doom’s automatons, but the sound, that _sound_ …

Bugger it. Shoot first, ask questions later.

The repulsor screamed defiance and the shock wave pulsed across the shop, sending loose papers flying like dirigibles, throwing small parts to the floor. And knocking Tony’s unwelcomed guest to the floor.

“Well, fuck.” Tony stood over the unconscious man, staring down at him. “Now I gotta carry you somewhere.”

He sighed. “Dummy, get over here!” Tony went to the shop door, hung out his _By Appointment Only_ sign and locked the gate.

***

Panic surged and Bucky almost puked when he roused and realized he was _locked down_. He was locked down and _seated_.

“No, no, _no_!” He jerked at the restraints, struggling, although he knew it never did him any good to struggle. Once he was in the lab, once he was in the chair…

Except he heard a distinct sound of creaking wood and he was… sitting upright, not pushed over on his back, staring up into the too-bright ceiling gaslamps. And he was screaming, shouting, his mouth was free, not locked with a bite-strap or muzzle and…

He managed to focus, tamp down the panic long enough to look around.

What he saw was nothing like those industrial gray walls, the bank of nixie tubes and punch cards, the white-coated scientists with their shining steel tools.

Instead what he saw was a brick-lined room, a dozen wall sconces giving the room light. Bits of unidentifiable machinery littered almost every surface and the quicky, sarcastic little inventor was sitting on one of the tables, just looking at him. At some point, the man had stripped down from his merchant’s coat and was wearing a thin, white undershirt, plain dungarees, and a pair of suspenders, one on and one off his muscular shoulders. A round, blue light shone underneath the shirt and tubes with glittering strands of the same light were held to his arms with leather bands. He had a set of welder’s goggles perched on top of his messy black hair and there were grease and soot smudges on his face.

He was, absolutely, the man Bucky was looking for. Anthony Stark. Bucky hadn’t been sure before; the few daguerreotypes that Bucky had seen of the man were blurred -- Tony Stark was not a man to stay still long enough to get a good tintype made. But there was no doubt, now. The few files Bucky had liberated spoke of the artificial heart, what it looked like. What it could do.

He opened his mouth to say so, but found himself giving voice to a more pressing question. “Why am I naked?”

Tony scoffed. “What did you expect? I was checking you for weapons and you’re carrying a god damn arsenal. Didn’t know what to do about that--” He jerked his chin at Bucky, or more specifically, at Bucky’s arm, a mess of copper plates and brass wiring. “But it doesn’t seem to be functioning right now anyway.”

Bucky nodded. “Out of _aether_ ,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s both impractical and primitive. What little I could figure out on a quick inspection showed me that the refueling pod is in the back, too. Difficult to reload yourself.”

“I ain’t s’posed to be working without a handler,” Bucky said.

“Which is why you came to me,” Tony said. As if that made perfect sense. Which it did, because it was true, god damnit.

“Which is why I came to you,” Bucky said. “You’re th’ only one who runs independent that might even be able to produce such a thing.”

“You know running an aether mill without a license is illegal,” Tony pointed out. “Not to mention such a radical body modification should only be attempted by biomechanical professionals.”

“Let’s just say there’s more’n a few laws I’m on th’ wrong side of,” Bucky said. “What’d you shoot me for?” He was fair certain what he’d been shot with. Raza wasn’t a member of the Hydra camps, but Ten Rings had a tentative alliance, and after the brass-and-balls mess that had been Gulmira was over and done with, some remaining members of Ten Rings had taken shelter in Hydra safehouses. Zola had gotten a full report, and, still assured of _compliance_ , had left the file somewhere that Bucky had been able to read it.

“You’re not the first pretty person that’s been sent after me,” Tony said, easily. “If people can’t tell the difference between SHIELD and Hydra anymore, that may say more about SHIELD than anything.”

Bucky managed a croaking laugh. It was almost too easy to flirt with the man while he was naked. Tony expected vulnerability, fear, or anger. Teasing and tension might disarm him, figuratively speaking, a little bit. “You think I’m pretty?’

“Actually, I think you’re Hydra,” Tony said.

 _I am. I was. I will be, if you don’t help me._ But that was putting too many cards on the table, too soon. “But still pretty.”

“I didn’t say that,” Tony spluttered. “What are you, a virgin planning your coming out ball?”

“Yeah, actually, you did say pretty,” Bucky said. He licked his lower lip, giving Tony his best bedroom eyes. It was scarcely a _chore_. Tony Stark was a good looking man, muscular, compact. Smart as a whip, from everything Bucky had heard. Rumor hadn’t mentioned how sarcastic and quick he was, but those were traits Bucky had found attractive. Once. When he was enough in his own mind to find someone attractive. “I heard you. No takebacks.”

“Yeah, well, poison comes in pretty bottles, pal.”

“Infiltration’s not my speciality,” Bucky told him.

“Yeah, what is?”

“I’m a sharpshooter,” Bucky said, bleak. “Aether long rifle. Mostly. But knives, if I have to.”

“As well as a whole variety of other little nasties I found in your coat. You’re well prepared.”

“Not really,” Bucky said. “Most of it runs on aether, and I been cannibalizing it so I can keep movin’ my arm for almost a year now.”

“No handler to call on?”

“Got away from my handlers durin’ the battle of the Potomack. Been on th’ run ever since.”

“So you _are_ Hydra.”

“I was, yeah,” Bucky said, sliding his eyes left, not able to meet Tony’s gaze. “Not by choice.”

“You’re a serum-swiller?”

“Not by choice,” Bucky repeated. “Prisoner of war. Captured. Altered.”

“Who were you before you became Hydra?”

“James Barnes, 107th Infantry,” Bucky said. “Look, if you ain’t gonna shoot me, or fuck me, can I get a blanket or somethin’? It’s cold down here.” Which wasn’t _quite_ true, but he was practically starving. It’d been days since he’d eaten and while his body could run for a long time without human needs -- food or sleep or comfort -- he got cold, ice cold, if he went too long without. Eventually, those needs would kill him, the same as any man, but he’d freeze to death, and if Hydra could find him, they’d bring him back from the dead. Again.

Tony climbed down off the table and uncovered a tattered blanket from a long sofa. “Dummy, wrap him up.”

The automaton wasn’t human-shaped, but Bucky recognized the type; wind-up probably. It seemed old, creaky. Clicked and hummed as it crossed the room, a single mechanical arm with a three-prong gripper on a wheeled platform. Dummy, which seemed to be the wind-up’s name, apparently had a babbage engine of some sort, able to follow simple directions.

“Amazing,” Bucky said, as the claw-arm draped the blanket over him, and tucked the ends around gently, as if it was used to doing such a thing. Bucky had an instant’s picture in his head of the wind-up covering its maker, if Tony fell asleep in his workshop. “You make him?”

Tony nodded, once. “Comes in handy,” he said. “He’s a helper clockwork. My first.” Dummy retreated to Tony’s side, and he ran a hand down the arm, as if petting it for a job well done.

“So… you ain’t gonna shoot me,” Bucky said, not bothering to mention the other thing. “What’s your plan?”

“I’ve only got about twelve percent of a plan,” Tony told him. “It’s a work in progress. All things considered, I think I’m doing pretty well.”

“Well, while you got twelve percent, do you think maybe I could trouble you for somethin’ to eat? I ain’t seen a meal in three days, I’m ‘bout to perish of thirst, and someplace I can fall on my face t’ sleep wouldn’t go amiss, neither.”

“You’re pushy, for a self-invited house guest.”

“Call me a prisoner if it makes you happy,” Bucky suggested. “But ‘less you wanna compare unfavorably to Hydra, y’ might want to feed me. Look, I ain’t gonna hurt you, that’s self-defeating. This damn thing don’t work right now and a child could knock me over. I jus’... I jus’ need some aether. I have money, I have--”

“I can’t make aether. I don’t have the facilities for it,” Tony told him. “So if that’s what you want, I’ll share dinner and you can move along. But you said you’re Hydra, and that doesn’t give you much trust to put a leash on someone who’s as obviously dangerous as you are. Weakened state or otherwise.”

Bucky sighed. Tony Stark was his last hope. Without him, without the arm… Bucky was going to get caught, he was going to end up back in Hydra hands. “Then I need you to kill me,” Bucky said. “I can’t fall back into their clutches. I can’t go back t’ killin’ on Zola’s word. And they will. They can make me, an’ there’s nothin’ I can do about it. I’d rather be dead. Consider it a mercy.”

“Zola, huh?” Tony scratched his chin. “You say that name like you have a lot of hatred for him.”

“Buddy, you don’t even know the half of it.”

“Well, I can’t make aether, but if we can come to some arrangements, I might be able to help you,” Tony said. “If you can be trusted. And we’ll have to see about that, I suppose.”

“How?”

Tony made a face, then pulled up the thin shirt, showing off a muscular chest and--

“It’s called an arc-reactor. It makes power. Power enough to run my heart, enough to run your arm. Enough to run… well, quite a number of things. That being said, it’s killing me. And Zola… well, your old friend Zola has the one thing I need. To make a new core, so that the thing that’s keeping me alive will stop killing me. If you want to help… well, I can think of a few ways we can help each other.”

 


	2. Substrates and Solutions

“I’m very good at predicting the future based on past and current trending, Rhodey,” Tony said. “So, I can just tell you’re about to say ‘you’re an idiot, Tony.’ Don’t bother to deny it.” Or he was going to ask Tony what he was thinking, or if he was intent on killing himself. Any of a half-dozen different phrases or exclamations that basically said don’t do what you’re about to do. So Tony could safely ignore him, because they both knew that Tony was going to do what he wanted, regardless.

“This is a mistake,” Colonel James Rhodes snapped. Rhodes -- Rhodey to Tony, and Jim to the rest of his friends -- was a thin man with a large nose and a truly impressive scowl. Or, it would have been if Tony didn’t know for a fact that his scowl often hid an exasperated smile. Except, maybe, today, it didn’t, really.

“I’ve been known to make those from time to time, but, contrary to your beliefs, sugarmuffin, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

“You wanna lay it out for me, then?” Rhodey gave up pacing around the workshop and threw himself down on the tiny sofa, which scraped against the floor and rocked back a few inches under Rhodey’s weight. “Because, on my honor, I cannot figure out what the hell you are thinking.”

“I’m thinking about project Rebirth,” Tony said. “I’m thinking about getting Zola, for good, and putting him down. I’m thinking about the Winter Soldiers --”

“You’ve got a damn Winter Soldier upstairs in your house, Tones, eating your food and sleeping in your parlor. And if you think you can trust him, you’re suffering worse delusions than your father did at the end of his life.”

Tony curled his lip; that was hardly fair. Howard was an old drunk, eyes yellowing from liver failure when he finally ran the _fardier à vapeur_ he’d been tinkering with into a low wall, and went face first into the creek, where he was discovered, drowned, in only a few inches of water.

“ _Parlor_ , nice euphemism, by the way… However, the best way to disarm an enemy trap is to get inside it, and trigger it,” Tony said. “Some fancy aeronaut I knew told me that once.” Rhodey didn’t bother to stop himself from rolling his eyes and making a rude noise. Rhodey had flown dozens of missions in the service of the country, commanding his own war machine dirigible, the _USS Iron Patriot_. And, if Tony wanted to be truly arrogant and condescending, he might point out that Stark Industries had been primarily behind the engineering and production of the war machines.

He didn’t. That was just cruel. See, he could be magnanimous.

“You think you’re gonna be able to manage that?” Rhodey asked. “You and one possibly-renegade Winter Soldier?”

Tony licked his top lip, giving Rhodey’s concerns all due attention. “I think if he wanted to kill me, he could have done that yesterday. I think if he wanted to kidnap me, he wouldn’t have admitted half the things he said.” And there was the part of him that Rhodey would have mocked, the part that wanted to trust a man with such brilliant, beautiful eyes. The face of a man haunted by what he’d been forced to do. The kind of thing that Rhodey would have called base sentiment and not the sort of logic to build an argument.

But Tony trusted intuition, which was, after all, nothing more than thin slicing -- his brain running faster, noticing more, and jumping to faster leaps of logic than he was capable of giving voice to. Everyone had gut feelings. And Tony’s guts were smarter than most people’s. He thought he could trust Barnes. If he had to.

He pressed his hand against the arc-reactor, feeling the pull and ache at the scar tissue, the way the containment vessel always felt cold, even though there were no deep nerves that could have detected temperature inside his sternum. Didn’t matter if it was psychosomatic or not. Still cold.

Tony had to. There wasn’t any choice. It was a risk, but it was a weighted, necessary risk.

“You think your cage is going to hold him? I want a look at this possibly renegade.”

“Leave him alone, the man needs his rest,” Tony said. He held up a hand to forstall Rhodey’s arguments, because it was Rhodey and Rhodey was going to argue about damn near everything until Tony was exhausted and inclined to give in. Wasn’t going to happen, not tonight. “And yes, I’m aware that the _parlor_ \-- thanks for that by the way, never letting that go -- probably won’t hold him, if he’s lying about everything and he really wants to get out. I’m prepared for that possibility. If he thinks I’m feeling secure that he’s in a cell, and he’s not trustworthy, he’ll take the bait.”

“What do you plan to do about that, if he does? You ain’t got anyone watching your back here, and do not even tell me that Dummy is standing guard, because that’s not going to fly here.”

Tony was, actually, prepared. He held up the sonic paralytic. “Remember this little toy? Obie had one developed, used it on me a few times.” It made him feel sick, the idea of using it on another person. That temporary paralysis was horrific, mind completely aware, but utterly unable to move more than breathing, heartbeat, basic autonomic functions. Being trapped in one’s own body, all your will and freedom removed, and anyone could do anything to you. Revolting, and Tony had to swallow down his gorge. But it would work, and it wouldn’t cause Barnes any lasting physical harm, although the psychological effects could be long-lasting and unnerving.

Faced with it, Tony would probably actually try to go hand to hand. The man was down an arm, and Tony had a few easily assembled pieces of his combat armor, if he needed them. But Rhodey wouldn’t like that answer, so Tony didn’t give him that.

“I’ll still feel better if I see him, Tones,” Rhodey said.

“No. He’s not an exhibit in a zoo,” Tony said. “He ate half my pantry and now he’s sleeping. Look, the only way he can be trustworthy is if I extend a little trust. He’s in a secure location -- by his request, not my suggestion -- and I’m going to let the man sleep.”

“Then why did you send for me, if you’re not going to let me do anything?”

“I wanted to give you some warning that I’m going to disappear for a while, and to ask you to look after Dummy while I’m gone.”

“That clockwork of yours isn’t a pet, Tony.”

“Don’t malign the intelligence of my clockworks, sourpatch. He’s just as much a person as half the members of Congress.”

“That insults Dummy, not Congress, I hope you know.”

Tony made a clicking sound with his tongue. “Now you’re emulsifying an image.”

“God, I hope not. Those chemicals stink, Tones,” Rhodey said. He pushed back on the sofa to stand up. “I should get home if you’re not going to let me poke and prod at your tame Winter Soldier.”

“Give my love to Pepper, would you?”

“I’m certain Mrs. Rhodes will be overjoyed to hear you remember her,” Rhodey told him.

“There are many words about the ex-Miss Potts to describe her feelings for me,” Tony said, “ _overjoyed_ has never been any of them.”

***

The third time Bucky woke in the night with night terrors, he just gave up. Restful sleep was just not a thing that was happening that evening.

For someone who had an actual prison cell as part of the standard layout of his home (Bucky thought it might once have been the butler or the housekeeper’s quarters, but it had been re-fitted up with bars on the windows and a stout door) the room was shockingly comfortable. Bucky wondered if Stark had, at one point, a reluctant mistress or something. That didn’t seem like the man at all, but there were no good reasons that Bucky could think of to require a holding chamber, creature comforts or not.

But in the meanwhile, Bucky took advantage of them. The bed he eschewed for the rest of the night, left the warm, soft blankets for another time, but there was a chair and ottoman to provide for relaxed seating and a small case of books, from which Bucky selected _Huckleberry Finn_. There was even an older version of Stark’s Amerola and a number of spindles, neatly labeled. Bucky was curious about those, he hadn’t heard terribly many of the newly-fangled sound reproductions. Most of his musical experiences had been chamber musicians, or the odd soloists who made their coin by playing on street corners.

Bucky read a few chapters of Huck’s adventures, keeping the gaslamp well lowered so as not to spill too much light into the hallway, before he got bored with it, and merely sat, staring around the room. He found himself, and that part of his mind that had been pinned off and taken over by Zola and his scientists, cataloguing the weapons that could be fashioned in this simple prisoner’s room.

The gaslamp itself was the easiest one. Every child knew not to blow out the pilot flame and turn up the stream. The invisible fumes could suffocate a person in a poorly ventilated room, and the slightest spark might ignite it. More advanced gaslamps had safeties in place to prevent it, but those were easily disabled, if one knew how.

Bucky knew how.

He also knew how to best use pieces of furniture as blunt instruments, how to shape a spoon’s shank into a weapon, and how to poison that weapon as to cause an infection, so even if the cut did not take a person’s life, they’d be laid low with fever in mere days.

There were a lot of things Bucky knew that he wished he didn’t.

There were a lot of things Bucky wished he hadn’t done, but he had.

He put the book aside. Wished to Christ that Stark had left a bottle of liquor or something laying around in his little posh prison cell. Whiskey didn’t get him drunk the way it used to… before. But it did sometimes take the edges off the collection of blades that were Bucky’s thoughts.

Against his wishes, his brain presented to him the last three combat encounters he’d been in.

All agents of Hydra, all trying to take him home to Zola.

_That’s not my home anymore, damnit._

Evildoers, one and all. Not an innocent among them, and yet--

_He’s down to his last bullet, saving it for the close kill. The man’s throat erupts in a haze of blood and bone when he pulls the trigger._

_Two knives now. A woman, down with a blade in the eye. Another man, who tags the Soldier with an aether weapon of some sort, frying some of the gears in his arm, enough to disable the three fingers, but he can still keep a grip on the knife. Despite that, he changes hands, stabs, slashes. Gets under the man’s guard and slices open his belly. Uses the partially disabled metal hand to grab a handful of slippery entrails and yank them out._

_The man screams as the Soldier casually disembowels him._

_The Soldier reminds himself to carefully clean the blood out of the hand before he attempts any repairs._

“Hey!’

Bucky jerked, pulling himself out of the spiral of thoughts, staring at his hands, expecting to see them blood stained. His right hand was shaking, the left one just stiff and useless as it had been.

He looked up -- disconcerting to see Stark peering at him through the barred window in the door. Like a brief reminder that Bucky was a prisoner. Like he’d been for so goddamn long. There was an instant’s urge to throw himself at the door, to shoulder it down, to clutch his hand around Stark’s throat, to--

 _No_.

_I don’t do that anymore._

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Dummy reported that there was a light on -- well, that’s not entirely true, but if you’ve ever seen a clockwork helper-arm attempt to crawl under the bed because he’s scared of something that goes bump in the night -- then you’ve just not been living the good life. Anyway, not that that matters in the slightest, but I thought I’d come up and see if there was something you needed.”

“Your clockwork gets scared?” That was both strange and comforting at the same time. That the creation might get scared, and that Stark would allow it to do so. Hydra had never allowed Bucky the comfort of being scared.

“Dummy is a lot of things, fully functional is not one of them,” Stark said. “One of these days, I’m going to relegate him to the scrap-heap. Donate him to a county fair. Something. Can… can I come in, this is unpleasant, talking to you through the door. I feel like a food cart attendant or something.”

Bucky didn’t quite mean to scowl, although that was probably what his face did, since Stark took a hesitant step back. “No, I mean, yes, come in,” Bucky said. “Sorry, I thought you were the one with the key, ‘round here.”

Stark groaned and dragged his hand down his face, the faint sounds of stubble scraping against his palm. “This is ridiculous,” he said. There was a clunk, a clatter, and then, “ _now_ can I come in?”

Bucky shrugged. “Sure.”

Stark was wearing a dark gold and brown dressing gown, knotted at the waist and showing off a deep vee in the chest that revealed the soft blue glow of the arc reactor. His feet and legs were bare, and Bucky had a bit of the shivers, just thinking about it. He wasn’t sure why bare feet felt so… intimate. But it did. Like Stark had just risen from a lover’s bed.

“I don’t sleep well, either,” Stark said, apropos of nothing. “And, to be fair, a good percentage of that goes back to being kidnapped and held against my will. That being the case, I’m a terrible host and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

“You can put it on my account,” Bucky told him. “Reckon I’ll end up owin’ you a fair amount, an’ a little forgiveness goes further than gold.”

“Yeah, about that,” he said. “Lemme look at that arm of yours, I think it’s got--” Stark put his hands on Bucky’s chest and turned him around to face the wall, fingers moving over the openings.

“Why do you have a screwdriver in your bedclothes’ pocket?” Bucky demanded.

“Doesn’t everyone sleep with at least _one_ tool?” Stark quipped, putting just enough suggestion into the sentence that Bucky’s eyebrow shot up. Before he could respond, Stark was inside the arm, poking and prodding and making thoughtful humming sounds, then a scoff of disgust. “You’d be better off if I took this whole rig and started over. Unfortunately, that’d set back our timeline by at least a month while I built it, and then got it attached, and you’d have to spend time learning how to use it. So, project for another time! In the meanwhile, I think I can bypass this _aether_ system and replace it with an advanced voltic pile, which can hold… eh, about thirty hours worth of functionality -- that’s just a rough guess, mind you. And I don’t know what sort of use increase, say, combat maneuvers would be. Or swimming. I wouldn’t advise that, until I can get something sealed in there. But eventually, of course, when I replace the whole thing, I’ll probably want to put one of these babies in there--” he tapped his chest “--assuming of course that I can solve the palladium poisoning issue.”

“The what?” Bucky wasn’t sure which part of the huge barrage of nonsensical knowledge Stark had just spewed at him, in a serious, awed tone that most people reserved for speaking about God, he was most confused about, but that last bit stood out. “Poisoning issue? Tell me about that.”

“Oh, that’s nothing, that’s just-- Hey! Hand off the merchandise!”

Bucky had turned around and jerked Stark’s dressing robe open to show off his chest. Even with the weird blue light cast by the device itself, it didn’t look… good. Bucky’d seen enough gangrene and infection in his time to know. “Jesus Christ, that thing is killin’ you.”

“Strangely enough, yes,” Stark said. “It’s also keeping me alive, so there’s some dramatic irony for you. Also, I’m no longer feeling particularly bad about tying you naked to a chair.”

Bucky blinked, then looked down and realized that, in spreading Stark’s robe to look at the arc reactor, he had, in fact, exposed the man entirely.

“Uh, sorry, Mr. Stark,” Bucky said, hastily reclosing the robe. He couldn’t tie the sash again, and simply held the two ends together, which, he became aware, did not help the situation _at all_. Since he was now _clinging_ to the front of Stark’s robe, and it hadn’t closed except right at the chest.

Stark tied his robe closed again without any haste, the high flush in his cheeks a dusky, come-hither color that Bucky was having a hard time not focusing on. “I think, all things considered, maybe you should just go ahead and call me Tony.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * well, I hit the wrong button. it was supposed to post TOMORROW, but hey, so you get it a little early. oops.


	3. The Archimedes Principle

“What is that?” Barnes asked, pointing to a coil of copper.

“Theoretically? A way to power your arm, temporarily,” Tony said. He was particularly proud of the copper wire, seven strands -- for geometric patterning, one in the center and the remaining six braided around it -- of evenly drawn metal. He’d had to get fancy and break out the ruby draw-plate to get the size correct, and the resultant cabling was highly flexible.

“Did you sleep at all?”

Tony didn’t answer that. Why did people always ask that question, it was a pointless question. By the time he could answer it, he’d either slept or he hadn’t slept, and aside from some amazingly well-written speculative stories about Chronic Argonauts, there had not yet been invented any way to turn back the clocks and do an evening a second time, with more sleep.

“Of course, it might also, _theoretically_ , be a way to kill us both in an instant, so if I were you, buttercup, I’d get on the coffee-brewing, because I need to finish coating this whole mess in paraffin so that touching it doesn’t galvanize us,” Tony told him. Some sort of jacketing had to happen, otherwise the _aether_ would pass from the arc-reactor right into Barnes’s arm and from there, probably rebound back into Tony’s heart before slithering down to the floor.

Tony had a few experiences being exposed to live _aether_. Not a sensation he wanted to go through again.

Barnes made a noise in his throat that Tony didn’t bother to interpret as he turned back to the extruder, carefully pouring the softened wax with one hand while working the crank with the other. He could manage about three inches of wiring before having to let the wax cool. It was a tricky process and if he made a mistake at any point in the procedure--

“How do you take it?”

Tony spluttered and almost missed a turn of the crank. Oh! The coffee. He really shouldn’t assume the worst (best?) whenever people talked. It would make his life a lot easier. “Just black’s fine.” He’d gotten used to drinking it that way; both on the road and whenever he was deep in an engineering haze, because remembering to buy milk or sugar was such a bother.

He was busy attaching the jacketed wire to the connectors by the time Barnes returned with his coffee. “Marry me,” Tony said, absently, taking a long swig of liquid perfection. He wasn’t sure what Barnes had done to his coffee, his coffee pot, or maybe his cup, but it was amazing. “Seriously, you can never, ever leave me, after this.”

“You like this, wait til you see what I can do with a frying pan,” Barnes said. “Might hafta wait ‘til I got a workin’ arm again, though. Coffee’s easy enough for a one-handed man, though.”

“Frying pans, who knew?” Tony muttered. He put down his hot knife after poking at the wire again. “All right. Over in the trunk, the one Dummy’s currently guarding, you might have to nudge him -- hey, Dummy, get away from that, would you? Swear, trading you to a cogshop at the next opportunity -- and get two pairs over oversized shoes. They’re insulated, should prevent the _aether_ from boiling us alive.”

“Comforting,” Barnes said. “My life’s depending on an extremely ugly pair of shoes.”

“For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost and all that philosophical bullshit,” Tony said. “Come on, gorgeous, I haven’t got all day.”

Barnes blinked at him, tucking the shoes in the crook of his artificial arm before returning to Tony’s side. “Did we have an appointment?”

“Flight to Budapest, actually,” Tony said. “What, did I not tell you? Zola’s last known position was somewhere near Bratislava. Ish. We’ll figure it out when we’re closer. But I have a friend who’s got me a couple of seats on a transcontinental aeroship. We’ll regroup once we get in the right country. I have a few contacts overseas. I imagine you have a different sort. Between them, we might be able to shake something loose.”

“I know a few places we could look, yeah,” Barnes admitted, because of course he did. Tony was still being trusting, but he wasn’t stupid. An alliance was never going to work if he couldn’t extend some trust, but a little caution never hurt anyone.

“I suspect you do,” Tony said. “Anyway, we launch tonight at nine, so we’ve got a few hours to get you charged up, ready to go, and, you know, pack. Buy anything you need. I’m sure you can make me a list. In the meanwhile, cupcake, take your shirt off and come stand here.”

Barnes’s eyebrow went up. “Ain’t you seen near enough of me naked already?”

“Not even close,” Tony said. “However; this wire’s likely to get warm while we do this. I don’t feel like smoldering.”

“Sure you don’t,” Barnes said, but he peeled out of his shirt, a little awkward, trying to get it around a giant artificial arm that had a lot of plates and cogs on it and caught every snag of material.

Rather than watch, as if Barnes was some sort of hedge-creeper, good-time boy doing a strip down for Tony’s entertainment Tony faced the other way. He was totally lying to himself, because turning away just meant he was watching Barnes strip in the mirror instead, but at least the thought was there. Tony coughed and then unbuttoned his own shirt, pushing his suspenders off his shoulders to drape around his thighs.

Tony stepped into one pair of the shoes and Barnes put on the other pair.

“Right,” Tony said. He grabbed a little jar. “This is conductive jelly. Just, dab your fingers in here and smear it around this plug-- oh, here, let me do that, you can’t see, can you.”

Tony dabbed the goop around the _aether_ battery hatch in the back of Barnes’s shoulder, then plugged the wire into it. “This’ll go right into your Voltaic pile, without having to work out an adapter, but it’s going to be a little tricky. It’s not the best way to do this, but until I have time to work out a better solution, it’ll have to do.”

“I’ll take it,” Barnes said.

Tony wrapped the wire around the pegs, making sure the connection was secure. “Here, hold that, until I’m ready.” Tony prepped the arc reactor’s plugs, getting another wire in place. “What we’re going to do is… well, you’re going to lift the arm, I know it’s not working right now. I want you to put the palm of the metal hand over the reactor. Don’t touch my skin. Yeah, here, I’ll hold that. Push the fingers back, so your hand’s like --” Tony splayed his fingers out to demonstrate. “Yeah, good, good. Now, onto the reactor. Okay. Will that stay?”

“Yeah. The cogs don’t turn without _aether_. If you’re not standin’ there, the arm’ll just hang, ‘til my shoulder gets tired an’ I let it drop.”

“Well, don’t do that. You can hold that, for, like an hour? Or so?”

Barnes shrugged, a one-armed gesture that was oddly endearing. “Probably.”

“Great,” Tony said. He smeared more goo on the other side of the wire. “This. Might feel weird.”

And he plugged them together.

***

 _Feels weird_ might have been an understatement. The hair on Bucky’s head tingled and at the same time, Tony’s curls rose, like he’d been scuffing in wool socks across a thick carpet. It didn’t hurt, but it was odd.

“Isn’t this like, th’ lead in to bein’ zotted?”

“Nah,” Tony said. “The _aether’s_ not able to ground. The insulation keeps it off the floor, which is where it would kill us. So, like, stand still, don’t touch anything, and it’ll be fine. I really do need to get on a better generator for us, but it’ll have to wait. We don’t have the time for me to reinvent natural science just for your convenience.”

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh. Tony sounded so put out by the idea of lacking _time_ , not the _ability_ , to reorder the universe just for his own uses.

The sigh that Tony made might have been all but inaudible to ears that hadn’t been tampered with. Bucky could hear better, see better, run faster for longer, than most humans. The serum wasn’t without its price, but in the meanwhile, Tony’s face tightened a little, the pulse in his throat jumped, his breathing sped. Barely noticeable, except to someone like Bucky.

He narrowed his gaze, focused on Tony.

The man’s chest was bare, and he was standing just so he was in the heaviest shadow of the workshop. On purpose, perhaps. Around the arc-reactor, the blueish light cast a crisscross of conflicts, mapped out on the skin, there.

Extending around the arc-reactor’s casing were dark patterned bruises on Tony’s chest, thin, like the mapping of veins, except somehow straighter and more angular than veins could ever be. A series of lines on an architect's blueprint, right down to the unnatural color.

Bucky studied those lines as if they were ancient hieroglyphs, or a demonic script, as if they could be deciphered, interpreted, as if they said something to anyone. Had some meaning.

And while he was tracing the pattern, Tony issued another one of those barely-there whispers. The bruising that had extended out from the reactor, about two knuckles length from the casing… spread. Again.

Just a little, the merest fraction, half the width of the moon crescent on Bucky’s fingernail. “Tony,” Bucky said, and the name got his attention, and more than Tony’s attention. The man inhaled sharply and looked up from his intense study of Bucky’s hand over his heart.

“Yeah?”

“Is this… safe?”

“Dumpling, nothing is _safe_ ,” Tony said. “Breathing is unsafe, with all the pollutants we put in the air these days, did you know that? I mean, we always said London had unsafe, foul air, but so does New York City, and everyplace on the planet where we’re dumping smoke, making fog--”

“This. Is this safe for you? Using the voltaic that powers your heart.” If Tony wanted to blather just to be a distraction, Bucky had to remember not to let him, because Tony’s brain appeared to run on faster than a locomotive and Bucky could barely keep up, and even when what he was saying was irrelevant, it was just so damned fascinating (and Tony’s voice was so damned beautiful) that it was all but impossible not to _listen_.

Tony shrugged. “It might be accelerating the process, you know, just a little. An hour here, two hours on the other end. It doesn’t matter, I’ve done some testing, and while it’s impossible to predict when, exactly, because you know, biology isn’t chemistry, and there’s no telling when some internal system will get compromised beyond the body’s ability to repair--”

“Tony!”

“Seriously, have you been talking to Rhodey behind my back, because my Christ, you sound just like him. Dummy, did you let Rhodey in, because I swear, I will sell you to a scrapheap--”

“This is killing you faster,” Bucky said, taking away the most important part of the information from Tony’s rant. It was all he could do not to jerk the clockwork arm away, but killing them through unadulterated _aether_ would be just as bad -- worse, even, since they’d die in minutes instead of days. “You know, there are a lot of people out there who function perfectly well with only one arm.”

That much was true, the recent war had its casualties, in limbs and sanity, as well as lives. There was hardly a street in New York that didn’t have at least one homeless veteran sitting on it, cap on the sidewalk in front of them.

“Most people aren’t stupid enough to take on Hydra fully-armed,” Tony pointed out. “I think we need all the advantages we can get.”

“That’s a terrible joke, Tony,” Bucky told him.

“Sorry, that comes part and parcel with the whole natural scientist job,” Tony said. “I should introduce you to this friend of mine, chemist, name of Bruce Banner, you’d like him. In fact, maybe I will, he’s not far from Budapest and if we’re in the area, he can certainly provide a bit of extra muscle. You think I’m bad, you should totally meet Bruce. Puns are the lowest form of humor, I tell him, but does he listen to me, no, no he does not.”

“Stop tryin’ to distract me,” Bucky said. “Won’t work. Why are you doin’ this?” He waved his right arm around, trying to encompass everything. The recharging, the mission, the transoceanic flight, all of it. “Why are you sacrificin’ yourself for me?”

“Maximum gain,” Tony told him. “I need the vibrainium that I know Zola has. I know he has it because he stole it from my father. Who may or may not have stolen it from King T’chaka in Wakanda, but that’s hardly my problem, is it? If I don’t get it and make a new core, I will die. There’s nothing to be done about that. My heart will give out, or the palladium will poison me. In either case, I’m not going to see the new year. We’ve got four months, on the outset, to fix this. Or I’ll die. Which would be a shame, because you are super, extraordinarily pretty, and I’d like more than four months to look at you.”

“And we’re back to you think I’m pretty again,” Bucky said, and even through the worry, that warmed him. It had been a long damn time since anyone had seen him at all, for a person instead of a tool, as a man, instead of a weapon. As a friend, even, rather than a hazard.

Tony gave him a smirk. There was a hidden layer behind that smirk, a _got you!_ kind of grin. Like Tony thought he’d gotten away with something. So used to hiding his real motives, his self-sacrifice behind a mask of selfish rake-hell industrialist. Bucky would watch him, though. Tony might be able to help, might be able to help Bucky beyond his wildest dreams.

That didn’t mean he had to give up all of himself to do so.

Bucky would make it part of his mission parameters to protect Tony Stark from harm. Protect Tony from himself.

Bucky eyed that little smirk again, the way those lush, plump lips turned up, the way his eyes sparkled, the way the line of his throat drew Bucky’s gaze.

He would protect Tony Stark from everything. Even from Bucky.

“How long?”

“Can you move your arm yet?”

Bucky concentrated, twisted at the shoulder.

The sound of the mechanism coming back was loud, like there was sand in the gears. God, Bucky hoped not. Dusting the inside of the arm was tedious and he always felt more naked and more vulnerable with the entire thing spread out on the table, being picked at by scientists and lab technicians.

He moved. The elbow bent. He had to shift his weight to keep from breaking the connection between his palm and Tony’s arc-reactor. Flexed the fingers. Well, most of them.

“Bent pulley and cogs in the middle, ring, and pinkie,” Bucky reported. “Probably from the last fight I‘s in. Woman got me with some sort of _aether_ weapon. She discharged the entire thing into my hand, twisted the joints pretty well.”

“I’ll fix that,” Tony promised. “As soon as we have you working at full potential again. In answer to your question, maybe… two hours? I don’t know. There’s no way to monitor how the voltaic’s doing without frying my eyeballs. We’ll go for two hours, and I’ll chonometer your output, see when we need to recharge. We might need to let you run all the way down first, and then see how the schedule is. Mighta been easier if you were a wind-up, but then they’d have put your key somewhere you couldn’t reach, like right between your shoulder blades. They like to keep you dependent on them, don’t they?”

“You have no idea.”

Tony reached, gestured at his arc-reactor. “Oh, I have a little notion of capturs like Hydra.”

“Yeah,” Bucky said, knowing his cheeks were flushing. “I guess you do got some idea.”


	4. A Positive Aerostatic Contribution

Tony had wanted to pack, to fuss, to tinker with his clockwork and tell Dummy that everything was going to be okay. The general sort of nonsense of nothingness that Tony did as his way to calm his mind whenever he was getting ready to do something amazing, or amazingly stupid and it was true that he couldn’t always tell the difference between the two.

But charging up Barnes’s arm had taken more out of him than he’d expected. He hadn’t been able to keep the reaction hidden either. When Barnes finally pulled back and broke the connection, Tony had practically swooned like a virgin being kissed for the first time, staggering backward until his lower back crunched into the workbench, the blinding, unexpected pain giving him the jolt of panic that he needed to keep himself on his feet.

Barnes divested himself of cables and wires in a few efficient movements, and Tony had time to admire the craftsmanship of the clockwork arm. Beautiful. Tony wanted that arm, wanted to take it apart and figure out every secret it had. Wanted to rebuild it, better and stronger and more efficient. He wanted to touch it, caress it, wanted to taste the metal and feel it on his skin.

Tony might have had some pretty impure thoughts and he might have wanted to keep those to himself.

Except that Barnes had lifted him, as soon as he wasn’t in danger of galvanizing both of them, and cradled Tony to his bare chest. Carried him across the room as if Tony was nothing more than a doll. “Here, rest,” he told Tony, putting him down on the tatty sofa that Tony kept in the workroom for days when his craftsmanship kept him from sleeping, brain spinning so hard that Tony’s hands couldn’t keep up.

Tony shivered. He didn’t mean to, and he would have liked to have told himself it was just a physical reaction, just a twitch of desire for the man who was holding him so gently, like Tony was something precious instead of a broken machine that needed to be constantly maintained even to be of a little use.

But it wasn’t.

He was just cold.

Barnes noticed, grabbed a blanket to cover him with. “You stupid fool,” he told Tony. “Don’t hurt yourself on my account. Even if you think--”

“It’ll get better,” Tony told him. “I’ll get used to it. I should probably get more sleep. Remember to eat. You run on aether, I run on soup and potatoes.”

“Stay,” Barnes told him.

Tony scowled, would have protested, except he was so tired, and the blanket was warm and… “Need to get ready, we have a launch time, can’t…”

“I’ll take care of it. You sleep,” Barnes told him.

“But, honey, I can’t sleep--” Tony complained, which was not true, it wasn’t even the slightest bit true. He shouldn’t sleep, he didn’t have time to sleep, there’d be plenty of time to sleep later. Although it did seem like he always said that and still found himself short on rest all the time.

Barnes chuckled. “Humor me. Pretend. If you’re not asleep in five minutes, you can get back up.”

“You’re lying,” Tony told him. “I can just tell, you’re a lying liar who tells lies and you’re in cahoots with Rhodey, I know that, too and…”

“Shush,” Barnes scolded, laying one clockwork finger over Tony’s lips. “Pretend.”

He was quite sure there was something wrong with that, that there was something he should be saying or doing, but Barnes looked so concerned that Tony decided he’d go ahead and humor the man. It wasn’t like he couldn’t think with his eyes closed, he’d just rest his eyes for a few minutes and…

***

Getting Tony to sleep had been less difficult than Bucky might have imagined and he stole away from the sleeping man to get to work.

Packing his things took exactly no time at all -- he barely owned a thing and most of it was already in his carpet bag.

It took him a few minutes to figure out Tony’s chifferobe system -- he apparently arranged his clothing by time of day he intended to be wearing them, instead of shirts together like a normal person. He also had never, seemed, folded his socks together, as they were a big tangle of mismatched all thrown in a drawer.

“You need a keeper,” Bucky said to the room. The clockwork creature that Tony had named Dummy seemed to agree with that assessment, although Bucky might have been giving the creation a little more credit for feelings than it might otherwise have had. It did seem mostly autonomous, if a little useless with what it chose to do. Bucky got it set up attempting to move clay marbles from the dish by Tony’s bed into a vase.

He packed a week’s worth of good, durable clothing; Tony’s grooming kit and sundries. Hesitated, but packed a few of Tony’s tools, and then added a very nice wrist-mounted mini gatlin, along with a box of ammunition for it. Tony would want to take his gauntlet weapons as well, Bucky assumed, but a backup gun never hurt anything. Bucky’s personal motto about guns was _rather have it and not need it_.

Bucky couldn’t decide if he felt more like a spy or a servant, shufflings through Tony’s things and trying to select what the man would want. He found a notebook full of sketches for inventions, along with a few pencil stubs, badly worn and splintery, but packed those as well, as there was blank space at the end and Tony seemed the sort who needed something to keep his hands busy while he waited.

A cross-Atlantic trip was going to take three or four days, at least; assuming that the airship that Tony had booked was one of those with a good engine, and they didn’t meet a headwind. Even the most powerful airships couldn’t do much against a forty knot counter current. There were a few platform cities in the Atlantic, for ships that were forced to land or refuel; dirty, crowded, grabby, and greedy, they were often a strayed ship’s best chance.

He found the airship tickets in a packet fastened to Dummy’s arm with Tony’s scrawled handwriting DO NOT LOSE on the outside of a fold of paper, checked the gate.

“Come on, Tony, time to get up,” Bucky said, trying to nudge the genius awake. That got him a grumble, a mutter, and Tony yanking the blanket over his head. A few more attempts to get Tony upward and mobile met with dismal failure, to the point where Dummy even came down to try and assist, yanking Tony up by the collar of his shirt like he was a scruffed kitten.

“Bad,” Tony told the clockwork, who would have dropped the man on the floor if Bucky hadn’t caught him, and scurried off into the corner to sulk.

“Fine, do it th’ hard way,” Bucky muttered. He got all their luggage onto a wheeled cart and strapped down, then wrapped Tony up in a blanket and draped him over one shoulder like he was carrying a reluctant toddler. Got out of the house and locked the front door, hoping that Tony had already made arrangements for care and entertainment of his clockwork, because otherwise Bucky wasn’t sure that a bored Dummy wouldn’t burn the house down.

He got most of the way to the airstrip, trying not to let it bother him that absolutely no one in New York City did more than clear an extra-wide strip of road when they noticed him carrying Tony like an early drunk. Bucky could have been kidnapping the man and no one seemed to notice or care.

As the crowds picked up near the shipyards -- construction bays and mechanics landings as well as all the various launching airships made for a loud environment -- Tony finally woke up and started to struggle.

“Stop squirmin’,” Bucky told him. “Goan drop you on your fool head and there will we be?”

“I do not need to be carried,” Tony sniffed, haughtily.

“Yeah, actually, you kinda did,” Bucky said. “Y’ didn’t want to wake up none at all, an’ we were goan miss our flight.”

“This is decidedly undignified.”

“Wasn’t aware you had any dignity,” Bucky said. “Stay still, damnit, or I swear, I will stow you with th’ luggage an’ let you make the trip in the hold.”

“You could just put me down,” Tony reasoned, propping himself up against Bucky’s back.

“You don’t have shoes or a shirt on,” Bucky informed him, “an’ we don’t got time for you to be givin’ the ladies around here the vapors. We’ll get on board an’ you can walk around all you please.”

“No one’s going to get the vapors,” Tony said.

“An’ that’s th’ truth, because I ain’t lettin’ you down,” Bucky said. “Keep strugglin’ like that and I will spank you.” He put one hand, warningly, on Tony’s thigh. “You’re makin’ my life difficult here, an’ I don’t care for that too much.”

“You are a bully,” Tony said. “You are a bully and a cretin and I don’t like you. Absolutely, writing you out of my will.”

Bucky shook his head, rolled his eyes, and dragged the luggage up the gangplank. “Tickets are in my vest pocket,” he told the porter. “Don’t mind him, he’s not sick.”

The porter gave him a dubious look, but checked the tickets, and then got an usher to lead them to their tiny little chambered room in the lower flight deck of what was undoubtedly the biggest airship Bucky had ever seen. Three passenger decks, a squad of smaller, softsides were attached around the gondola, and two outsider ships with defensive guns, in case airpirates tried to take the ship.

“How many people are on this thing at a time,” Bucky wondered.

“Between crew and passengers, the Heritage Grace carries about three hundred at full capacity,” the usher told him with a hint of pride. “Largest ship in the fleet.”

“An’ how many can those softsides safely land, in case of an emergency?”

“The captain will go over all safety measures shortly after liftoff, sir.”

Their cabin was tiny, not much more than two bunk beds and a fold-down table with matching fold-down chairs. Bucky tossed Tony on the lower bunk and he squawked indignantly, but then yawned, curled up and jerked the blanket over his head again.

“Meals are on the first deck, or --” the usher showed them a Graham-Bell handset near the door “-- you can call for in-cabin meals at your leisure. Necessaries are at each end of the corridor. The flight decks are open for perambulation and fresh air in the mornings and evenings; in case of foul weather, they are closed and passengers will not be permitted above decks.”

“Thanks,” Bucky said. He reached out to hand the usher a folded bill, nothing big, but enough that he could draw the man in a little.

The usher turned to go and Bucky lifted his punch-card; a square of thin, enameled wood with a number of little holes in it, that the crew would use to access locked doors aboard the ship.

“What are you doing?” Tony asked, after the usher had made his way back into the corridor.

“Gonna check the passenger manifests,” Bucky said. “‘Long with gettin’ a look-see at the crew, the engine works, an’ the cargo hold.”

“Do I even want to know why?”

“I don’t trust nobody,” Bucky said, “which is why I’m still alive. Wanna see who else is on this bird with us; won’t do a lot of good until I can see ‘em all direct, but there’s some code names I know, an’ some that’ll ping whether I should take a closer look-see.”

“All right,” Tony said. “You go do your spy-stuff and come back when you’re done. I think you’re worrying about nothing. Rhodey -- that’s Colonel James Rhodes of the Air Cavalry to you -- got these tickets for me, so there’s no reason whatsoever to connect him to me, and me to you.”

“It’s not paranoia if someone is, actually, out to get you,” Bucky responded. Which was true enough, and there wasn’t any reason to take chances. There were any number of Hydra agents would could have tracked him, who could have been watching from the street where Tony lived. Bucky assumed that pretty much everyone was Hydra, until they proved otherwise. It had kept him alive this long.

Besides, it was easier to dispose of a corpse if they were still on the ground. Dumping a body in flight was a lot harder. Better do it now, if he needed to. He tugged a glove over the clockwork hand and put his hand in his pocket. It would make him move awkwardly, but having people notice the arm -- and it wasn’t exactly subtle or quiet -- would be more awkward.

Tony snuggled back into his bunk, already drowsing again. Bucky wondered when the last time the man had gotten a decent night’s sleep had been, perhaps a decade ago the way he was clinging to dreams.

Bucky slipped out of the room and locked the door behind him. It wouldn’t do a damn bit of good, the airship’s doors were barely thicker than paper and meant to give the illusion of privacy more than any amount of security, but there wasn’t much Bucky could do about that.

He did a quick scan of the passenger decks; they were pretty much as advertised, holding thirty to forty cabins on each level. Top level passengers had larger staterooms, and there a lower class seating area where those passengers who could barely afford their tickets were crammed into unpleasant and uncomfortable looking seats; where they wouldn’t be able to stretch out at all to sleep, and had to deal with noise and smells, and there were only two lavatories for the entire room. They’d eat after the upper class passengers, and only so much food as was left over. Poor bastards.

That being said, Bucky gave them a very hard look-over. Hydra didn’t care much for the comfort of its agents, and the general populace was a good place to hide.

Bucky caught a glimpse of a few passengers that he’d want to peer at their names on the manifest, made a mental note of their seating arrangements. He caught a brief argument as a woman fussed about someone being in her seat, and listened to one of the crew settle the argument by directing her to another seat. Bucky studied that man’s face as well; before slipping out of general and headed up to check the crew areas.

He had to be more careful there; snagged a dark blue coat from a passenger that let him blend in better with the blue uniformed crew, kept his head down and walked as if he knew where he was going.

The passenger manifest was difficult to lift; that area was highly congested with crew, and the occasional passenger dispute, but eventually Bucky got a look at it by climbing up inside some of the ship’s ductwork and using his spyglass to read over the conductor’s shoulder.

_Natalie Rushman._

Bucky shivered.

He wasn’t positive it was one of the Black Widows, but they all tended to use aliases that could be mistaken for their actual names. It gave them an excuse if they turned around to a wrong or old alias…

He’d known one of the Widows before, she often went by such call signs as Talia, Natasha, Tanya, and her surname always began with an R.

He’d need to check her cabin.

But he’d also have to be very careful when doing so.

If it was a Widow, she was his most dangerous adversary.

On the other hand, if there was a Widow on board, she might already be going after Tony on the same logic that Bucky was using for the disposal of a body.

Bucky swore silently and slithered back out of the ducts, practically racing back to their cabin. He dumped the coat off in one of the lavatories -- someone would find it, and maybe the owner would even get it back -- and slid the cabin door open.

He twisted inside and put his ear to the door to see if he’d been followed. When he didn’t hear anything, he turned around.

To find Tony standing directly behind him, stripped naked, and bathing himself in the ewer of water. Tony held the tiny washcloth directly over his midsection, which didn’t quite hide all of himself.

“I… er, wasn’t expecting you back quite this soon,” Tony said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I accidentally loaded the unedited copy so if you read this and noticed any [notes] just refresh the screen, I fixed them!


	5. By Radium Lamplight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late...

Barnes’ hand scrambled for the door knob and he almost yanked it open when there were voices in the corridor.

Opening the door at that moment would have exposed Tony to everyone -- literally, exposed -- that was there. For an instant, Tony thought Barnes was going to do it anyway. The man was red-faced and trembling with embarrassment.

And while Tony wasn’t exactly body shy, he’d really rather not deal with the outcome of that sort of introduction. If nothing else, the story would spread throughout the airship, and how many people existed with a voltaic pile embedded in their chests? Any hope of getting through this trip discretely would be gone.

“Learn anything?” Tony said. Might as well keep it casual, right? He ignored the sheath of goosebumps that wrapped themselves around his limbs, rippling up his spine. It might not have been so bad, except that Barnes was staring, and trying desperately to pretend that he wasn’t. Whether that was for Tony’s imagined benefit, or his own discomfort was unclear. More data was required.

“Uh…” Barnes snapped to attention, his gaze jerking from Tony’s bare hip, down his leg, and then staring intently at the floor. “We might got an agent on board. I’ll need a closer look at ‘er, someway discreet. An’ what’s more, don’t dare t’ leave you alone, in case it’s you she’s after.”

“I daresay I’ve had some ladies after me in my time,” Tony joked.

“Not like this one,” Barnes said. “If she’s what I think she might be, she’ll kill you as soon as kiss you. Probably at the same time, even.”

“That would be unpleasant,” Tony said. He hadn’t tried to get dressed because every time he so much as twitched, Barnes’ chin wobbled as he tracked Tony’s every move. “Um, I hate to point out the obvious, but it’s a little distracting for me when you’re looking at me like you’re planning to pounce. A wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie isn’t really a good look for anyone.”

Barnes blinked those wide steel gray eyes a few times, then seemed to realize what he was doing. “Sorry,” he said. “A what?” He turned around, giving Tony the courtesy of his back.

“It’s a poem, about a mouse,” Tony said. “My tutor was particularly fond. Explicating poetry is not exactly my most favored pastime.” He grabbed his clothes, trying to ignore how Barnes jerked at every sound. Pulled his shirt on over his head, got the sleeves twisted around and struggled to right the garment. “Sort of like dissecting a frog, you know. Now you know how the frog works, except it’s not so great for the frog. He’s in pieces, all over the place. And every poem is a new and different frog, and so rather than appreciating the beauty of the poem, you’re up to your elbows in amphibian bits.”

Despite the awkward situation, Barnes’ shoulders jerked with suppressed laughter. “You are morbid as th’ day is long.”

 _The day’s not the only long thing around here_ , Tony thought, and practically bit is lip through not saying it. Barnes was flustered enough, which was odd, given how easily he’d been in his own naked skin, the first night they met.

On the other hand, there was the fact that Tony was a little more observant than people gave him credit for.

Barnes had been watching him, the entire time, in the reflection on his metal wrist.

Tony didn’t -- not quite -- allow himself to smirk.

An ear piercing sound split the air, like a bullroarer being wound.

“What the ever--”

“Liftoff siren. Ain’t you never rode a dirigible before?” Barnes told him, turning reflexively, which turned out to be a good thing because the land crew cut the ground lines and the entire airship stuttered skyward. The ground moved under Tony’s bare feet and he staggered as the ship tilted sharply starboard.

He probably would have hit the floor if Barnes hadn’t been there. As it was, he face-planted right in the middle of Barnes’ broad chest, hands flailing to catch himself. Barnes rocked backward, hit the door with his back, which stopped their downward movement.

It took Tony a few seconds to get his bearings again. And to realize that Barnes’ metal arm was tucked around Tony’s back, holding him upright. The flesh and bone hand was around his waist on the other side, hand flat against Tony’s ass. Tony wriggled a little, looked up, and Barnes was close enough for kissing, his mouth open in surprise, lower lip shiny-wet as if he’d just licked it.

Aaand there went Tony’s dignity, right out the porthole, because he made a noise, some little desperate sound of want, of desire. Heat pooled in Tony’s spine and all his blood rushed south. It couldn’t possibly be more obvious that Tony’s dick was getting involved in the situation, pressed as it was against Barnes’ thigh.

He’d half expected Barnes to shove Tony away like he was on fire, but he didn’t. He just stood here, legs wide stance and braced, hand squeezing light on Tony’s buttcheek.

Tony’s hands were against Barnes’ chest, the fingers of one hand brushing over his throat as the man swallowed, and then swallowed again, convulsively.

He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing that Tony had ever seen in his life.

_Fuck. I want him._

Tony wasn’t quite sure where that thought had come from, or what, even, he planned to do with it, now that he’d actually acknowledged it, even if it was just in his own head. He licked his own lips, his chin tilted to accept a kiss, if Barnes had wanted to give him one.

Barnes flexed his fingers, nails digging into Tony’s tender skin, sending zings of sensation through his nerves. Tony pushed back, involuntarily leaning into the grip Barnes had on his ass, squirming with fierce need. “I, uh--”

Barnes leaned in, drawn like a magnet to Tony’s mouth, just where Tony wanted him. Tony’s hands went around Barnes’ neck, eager, accepting.

The ground crew cut the ropes on the port side, and the dirigible rose up into the air, rocking like a cradle.

The movement shoved them off balance in the other direction, and then it was Tony trying to keep his feet, keep them from toppling to the floor, because that was going to hurt like hell if Barnes fell on him. That arm wasn’t anything like light-weight.

They shifted, shuddered. The clockworks and corrective gimbels in Barnes’ arm clicked and clattered. The clockwork arm shot around, grabbed hold of the side of their bunk beds, and Tony found himself in a sudden dip, bent backward over Barnes’ right arm, hands clinging desperately around Barnes’ neck like the heroine in a stage drama swooning into a kiss.

It was utterly, utterly ridiculous. Tony dressed only in his shirt, Barnes’ clutching him like a drowning man grabbed rope, the airship’s gondola rocking them around like a hurricane, and all Tony could think about was that he was going to die if Barnes didn’t kiss him.

Tony wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to be able to maintain any sort of poise, and they might have gone on staring at each other until the sun went down, except that someone rapped on the door. “Tickets, please!”

Barnes snatched his hand off Tony’s backside like it was a stovetop. Barnes jerked his chin at Tony, who scrambled back and into the shadow of the door, grabbing his trousers on his way over. It still wouldn’t look proper, but Tony was pretty sure the conductor had seen worse, air travel being what it was, and human beings being what they were. He got his pants up around his hips and was working the fastenings when Barnes slide the door open about six inches and shoved the pair of tickets out the crack.

“Thank you, sir,” the conductor said, punching little holes in the paper. Tony leaned against the wall, panting for breath, his blood still racing in his veins and his dick having some very loud, angry opinions about the way his afternoon was going. Tony directed a downward glare, as if he could freeze his erection into behaving. _No one asked your opinion_ , he told it.

It didn’t have much of an answer for that, but, then again, it never did.

***

Bucky noted that the conductor gave their room a cursory glance, but didn’t appear to see the half-dressed Tony hiding behind the door. Or at least, he was professional enough to pretend not to notice. Which was good. Disposing of a body while in the air was difficult, and Bucky would hate to have to kill the man. He was only doing his job.

Bucky didn’t turn around after sliding the door shut. He didn’t know that he was going to be able to control himself if he got one more look at Tony’s long, trim legs, or the grace of the man’s wrists that peeked out from under his unbuttoned shirt, or the glimpse of white throat.

 _What the hell are you even thinking?_ Bucky demanded of himself.

“I’m dressed,” Tony said, finally. “Note that I didn’t say decent, because that would be a damned lie, but--”

Bucky sighed and threw himself down on the bunk, which wasn’t exactly a good move, because Tony had been laying there and Bucky could smell the man’s cologne and shaving cream already permeated in the sheets.

“Did you find out anything important?”

“There might be a spy on board,” Bucky told him. “Don’t know if she’s after us, or on her own mission, but I wanna get a look-see at her. If she’s who I think she is, we’re in a helluva lot of trouble, even if she don’t want you specifically.”

“Any particular reason, or is this like a Justin Hammer thing where I will back up the velocipede to make sure that I killed him?”

Bucky actually chuckled at that. “Might be,” he said. “We know each other, an’ only about half th’ time are we on th’ same side. She might attack me ‘soon as she lays eyes on, or she might offer me a hand. Can’t be sure until I see her.”

“This sounds unpleasant,” Tony said. “What about we just don’t see her at all? We can stay in the cabin and take our meals here. No need for any spy versus spy maneuvers, because I might add, our escape options are limited on a dirigible, and they get even more limited once we’re over the ocean. And as Rhodey would tell you, even when I think I’m doing okay, I have an unfortunate tendency to be involved in explosions.”

Bucky shook his head, hyper aware of his own skin, the way his hair brushed against his face, the tight fit of his clothing, the way his dick was still twitching under his trousers and how badly the palm of his hand ached to touch, to stroke--

_Jesus, Barnes, you got it bad._

“Won’t play,” he said. “If she’s who I think she is, she’ll find a way to get a look at us, and then we’re playing her game.”

“So, what’s the plan?”

“We go to dinner, and I try to play spot the spider.”

“What’s she look like?” Tony asked.

“Usually a red-head, but sometimes blonde,” Bucky told him. “Full mouth, with a little dip here in the lower lip. She moves like a dancer, graceful. Never in a position of power. She’ll be posing as a nurse, or a nanny, or a secretary. Never attached to a man; she’s a master of seduction.”

“A master, huh?”

Bucky wasn’t sure what that glance meant, wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Tony’s eyebrows waggled suggestively. “She could get a rise out of a dead man,” Bucky said. There were times he missed Steve Rogers so much it hurt. This was one of them, although not for the man’s friendship, but because Steve was a talented artist and he could have drawn up a sketch of the Black Widow in mere moments, which was much easier than trying to describe someone, even if she was sex on legs and Tony would probably know her the instant he saw her. Widows, when they were out in public, drew the eye. They invited men to bed them, women to confide in them, children to befriend them. All so they could betray those bonds in a single instant. And Steve could have captured that with his pencil, which would be less worrisome than exposing Tony to her.

“Well, I’ve met a few corpses, that’s not as difficult as you might imagine.”

“I don’t think I wanna know the story behind that,” Bucky said, blinking slowly.

“No, you probably don’t,” Tony said. “I’d recommend giving the undead a miss, if you can manage it.”

“I take it back,” Bucky said. “You need to tell me this story. Over dinner.” That would give Tony something to do to keep him occupied, and Bucky could search the dining room for any of the telltale signs of a spider infestation. Bucky reached over and pulled the privacy curtain on his bunk.

There wasn’t anything he could do about his current state of arousal, but he could at least not look at Tony while the man finished dressing for dinner.

“Well, I’m not the only one sharing revoltingly awful stories over dinner that literally should not be talked about while eating, so I hope you have some good ones,” Tony said. “Life with Hydra and all that, I expect you’ve got quite the treasure trove of interesting stories. I want to hear all about them.”

You really don’t.

“Sure, I’ll think of a few,” Bucky said. He pondered the more interesting adventures he’d had, ones that hopefully wouldn’t cause Tony to be terrified of him and his abilities, ones that wouldn’t betray the monster that Bucky Barnes had become while he was in Hydra hands.

“All right,” Tony said, finally. “You can take me into dinner, now.”

There was just enough suggestion in that voice that Bucky hesitated. He had to be imagining things, though, right?

He crawled off the bunk. “Sure, oka--” His voice failed him. He’d seen Tony in his workshop clothes, and in his gold and brown dressing gown, but he’d never seen Tony in street clothes. Even though Bucky himself had picked them out, he hadn’t realized what the impact was going to be. Instead of a greasy, smeared shirt and worn trousers, Tony was clad in a deep blue suit, the cravat at his throat was a rich red, and added something extra to his complexion. His normal tousled and messy hair had been elaborately pomaded into an elegant style, and he’d found -- somewhere, Bucky was sure he hadn’t packed them -- a pair of round, silver wire spectacles with deep blue lenses that should have looked ridiculous, but didn’t.

“Now I feel like I’m underdressed,” Bucky muttered. “Ain’t you pretty enough for a picture?”

“You think I’m pretty?” Tony asked, giving Bucky a flirty smile.

“I didn’t say that--”

“Oh, oh, yes you did, Barnes. And I’m not going to let you forget it,” Tony said. He laid his hand on the crook of Bucky’s arm. “Dinner, shall we?”


	6. Concerning the Exalted Crystal Technique

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes! I meant to post this on Monday, but I've been distracted and sick!

Tony’s friend had obviously spent a pretty penny for their tickets; their table in the dining area was in one of the little alcoves overlooking the dining hall. Secluded, private, with a good view of the floor. Those were all things in its favor. On the other hand, everyone took note of the upper class, which meant they weren’t inconspicuous. Not even a little bit.

Bucky was seething by the time they were halfway through the soup course. Which was a shame, because it was a lobster and brandy bisque and it was quite delicious. Along with a good bottle of wine and some unleavened crackers. Better food than Bucky was used to, under any circumstances. The other reason he was seething was more personal, but also more distracting.

Tony kept flirting with him, like they were courting and Tony had managed to get Bucky away from his chaperone, which was ridiculous.

At least, Bucky’s stupid brain kept interpreting everything as flirting. It was probably just the way Tony was -- Bucky’d heard rumors, of course. Everyone had. Tony had that… reputation. So, his flirting probably didn’t mean anything.

Which didn’t mean that Bucky wasn’t running hot and cold every time he looked across the table and realized that Tony was watching him with bedroom eyes, or glance up to watch Tony carve off a small portion of his roast and fork it delicately into his mouth. Or the way his tongue darted out to catch the last drops of wine from his glass. Or the way Tony’s foot kept bumping him under the table.

It was shameful, the way Bucky was hanging on Tony’s every word, barely keeping up his own end of the conversation, just enough to be able to listen to that whiskey sweet voice rumbling.

“So, that pretty much ended that,” Tony was saying. “Took me three hours to make an omelette. Pepper didn’t accept my apology, but she did accept Rhodey’s proposal, so I suppose that’s all that really matters.”

“I can’t believe she’d really turn down your best friend, just because--”

Tony waggled his hand around a little bit. “We’re kinda a matched set. Rhodey’s mostly the responsible, sensible sort, but oh, man, let me tell you about this time--”

And Tony was off again, on this crazy story that didn’t even make sense, but Bucky was just happy to sit there and stare at the man, watch his mouth move as he talked, and drink in everything about him.

If Steve was here, he’d laugh at you, Bucky thought.

But Steve wasn’t there, and hadn’t been, not for years. God only knew what happened to him, after the War, but Bucky didn’t want to see his best friend, didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes when he learned what Bucky had become. Better to just stay missing in action, like everyone believed him to be.

Later, Bucky wasn’t sure if he was ashamed that he wasn’t paying attention, or elated that his lapse of watchfulness led to the best moment of his life, up until that point.

He was leaning in, raptly watching Tony relate yet another ridiculous exploit when he caught a glimpse of red hair, reflected in the lamp over Tony’s shoulder. Just enough to draw his attention, and then he zeroed in on it.

_Natalia._

Bucky reached out without thinking, wrapped his fingers around Tony’s cravat, practically dumped the wine off the side of the table, and decidedly put his elbow in the gravy boat.

But then he kissed Tony, his mouth molding onto Tony’s lips, his nostrils filled with Tony’s scent, his tongue discovering Tony’s taste.

_Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable._

Bucky watched Tony’s eyes widen for just a moment, startled, shocked, even, and then he melted into it, eyelashes fluttering closed.

He opened his mouth to Bucky, and Bucky went ahead and helped himself.

There was a crackle of feeling, a frisson of nerves, at the touch, and he almost drew back, startled, but instead surged forward. His tongue slid inside, exploring the silken cavern of Tony’s mouth. His breath puffed, hot, against Bucky’s cheek. Tony’s lips were a marvel, soft and velvet, moving with what could easily be interpreted as eager, even wanton, skill.

Bucky issued a whining little groan in the back of his throat. His body and mind were entirely at odds, brain wanting to make sure that Natalia kept on walking -- and indeed, he could hear her footsteps as she patrolled the corridor along the balcony alcoves. Was she moving on? If so, did she have an assignation she was headed for, or was she merely scoping out the occupants of each table, checking them against some mental list?

The rest of him, body, soul, heart, ka, whatever, was utterly absorbed in a kiss. His pulse betrayed him, heart hammering in his veins. Tony’s hand came up and cupped the side of Bucky’s jaw. Pleasure pierced him like a knife. Again, and again, as Tony took tiny tastes of Bucky’s mouth, then slid down, nuzzling at the side of Bucky’s jaw, sampling down his throat. At last, Bucky released him -- he couldn’t hear footsteps at all anymore, so maybe the danger had passed. The physical danger at least. Bucky might very well be up to his chin in a quagmire of emotional peril.

Tony’s lips left a tingling path against Bucky’s skin which refused to subside. Tony’s touch had left a shamble of Bucky’s reason, scattered his wits to the winds.

“I need--” Bucky said, barely getting the words out before Tony kissed him again, this time Tony started it, this time Tony took control, thrusting his tongue into Bucky’s mouth, his hand wrapping around the back of Bucky’s neck to pull him even closer.

And there went the wine.

Tony reached out, not even looking, and caught the bottle by the neck and returned it to the table. That was so unbelievably graceful, sensual, that Bucky stiffened like he was going to come, right then and there.

Tony’s breathing was a riot in Bucky’s ear and his heart pounded so hard that Bucky could feel it in his fingertips. He was lost, he was fucking lost, and he knew it and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it except fall.

Tony’s tongue moved in his mouth, a rush of dark pleasure swamped everything else. The taste of Tony, wine and the tart-sweet of beet salad and the dark spice of sin, it was like a wicked secret and Bucky wanted nothing more than to keep it for himself. Always.

Tony was as beautiful as an angel, but it wasn’t heaven where he was leading Bucky, but temptation and Bucky was going to go, gladly, as far down that path as possible.

The server did not… quite. Cough.

But he did sigh, just a little, enough to draw their attention away from each other and to the next course of their meal.

Tony leaned back in his chair, straightened his cravat as if nothing had happened, and waved a hand at the place setting in front of him. Some sort of lamb, from the smell, and Bucky never wanted to eat anything less in his life. He was starving for an entirely different sort of nourishment.

“Well, that was exciting,” Tony said, after the server disappeared down the corridor. “Do you think she bought your little act?” He rolled his tongue around in his mouth, like he was sucking a sweet.

 _I didn’t kiss you because she was watching_ , Bucky wanted to say, except that it was a lie, and he wasn’t sure how to say I didn’t kiss you only because she was watching without it sounding like a lie. Instead, he shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out.” Which was also true, but why the hell did the truth seem to sound so daming? It wasn’t like he didn’t want to kiss Tony anyway, and for that matter, it sure as hell felt like Tony had wanted to kiss him.

So why were they discussing it like Bucky hadn’t done anything more than his damn job?

“Well, don’t let me stop you from figuring it out, sunshine,” Tony told him. He picked up his fork and knife and went back to his dinner like nothing had happened.

_God damn it._

_***_

Tony was about to do something drastic, and by drastic, he meant, open his mouth and actually ask a question like _What the hell was that all about?_

It would break every personal rule that Tony had about things like feelings and relationships and emotions, which would be why Rhodey had said multiple times that Tony didn’t have any. Relationships, that is, not feelings. Tony had plenty of feelings. He was a pile of feelings loosely disguised as a functional human being. But he hadn’t ever managed to make relationships work; Tony could count the number of actual friends he had on one hand and still manage to wave for a beer in a pub.

He couldn’t count the number of people he’d flirted with, conducted an affair with, and bid them good day. Most of those wanted something from him, money or fame or position or standing. None of them lasted long. Very few of them were worth remembering. And Tony had given it up a while ago. He just wasn’t finding that sort of thing very satisfying. It was like the more delicious dessert, and yet, he was starving to death.

The way Barnes looked at him suggested that Barnes was _also_ starving.

The kiss had been nice. The kiss had been god damned amazing, best kiss that Tony ever had in his life. Like Barnes had been reaching over and touching his soul, somehow. Tony would have melted into that kiss, would have taken it to its natural end, except...

Except, then, he’d seen _her_. The red head with the curved mouth.

And it took him exactly half a second to realize what Barnes was doing; he was creating a smokescreen, a flim-flam. He was inviting the redhead to look somewhere else, anywhere else, because people didn’t stare at indecency, not without being accused of indecency themselves. And with the red haired woman, this Widow that Barnes spoke of, she couldn’t afford to do anything to draw attention to herself. Being caught staring at two men kissing would cost her even more reputation than it would have cost Tony and Barnes to be doing it.

So, it wasn’t anything.

It didn’t mean anything.

Which did not mean that Tony wasn’t above taking advantage of the situation. If a few stolen kisses were all he was ever going to get, he was going to damn well take them.

“I’ll give you points there, for distraction,” Tony said. “I bet she wasn’t looking, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t do anything stupid to get her attention, like stare at her.”

Barnes nodded, seeming a little dazed, which, that was good, right? “We’ll watch our steps as we leave,” he said. “If she’s going to do something immediately, that’ll be the time. Otherwise, it’s just more watch and wait. But at least I know she’s here.”

“It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you?”

Barnes gave Tony that wide, uncomplicated smile that lit up his whole face and that was just not fair in the slightest, who said the man could have a smile that made Tony’s heart flip over like a pancake? “Oh, it’s still paranoia,” he said.

“So, what’s the plan?”

Barnes nudged him under the table, and Tony found himself with a tiny hold-out pistol in his lap. “I’ll follow you back to our room,” he said. “And if we see her, I’ll try really hard to take her prisoner. She might be an enemy, but she might also be a good resource. I don’t wanna waste her if I don’t gotta. That--” he jerked his chin, indicating the gun “--is if she gets past me.”

There were some unspoken currents there, like how if the red head got past Barnes, the tiny hold out pistol would probably be useless. About how if she got past Barnes, he’d probably be dead, and Tony next on the list. Or, whatever it was that she wanted from them.

Tony hadn’t felt that sort of frisson up his spine in a while, that mix of high spirits and fear that made his eyes water and his skin tingle and his throat feel like someone had just forcefed him a lit coal, but also made him jittery and eager and excited.

“Why do I think this sounds like a terrible plan?” Tony wondered. He stared down at his plate, suddenly completely lacking in appetite.

“All plans are terrible,” Barnes said. “They fall apart as soon as anything happens, that’s just life and the nature of humans to be unpredictable. But it should go as well as anything else, and you’re less likely to panic if you think I know what I’m doing.” There went that smile again, a little sharper this time, as if he’d been stropping it against a whetstone. A little bloodthirsty.

“Isn’t telling me that fact pretty much guaranteed that now I know you don’t know what you’re doing?” This was just getting more and more complicated, and it wasn’t helped at all by the fact that Tony’s body was still tingling, his heart was still beating faster than normal, and there was a certain stiffness in the way he was sitting that led him to believe that, had things been completely normal, he might have been delighted to take Barnes back to their quarters.

Stupid body.

“Nah, we’re good,” Barnes said. He buttered another roll and ate it, calm as Tony could possibly want to be, which was… confusing.

Was Barnes really not worried, or was he playing it cool for Tony’s sake?

“Finish eatin’,” he suggested. “If it’s nothin’, you’ll just be hungry later. An’ if it’s somethin’, god knows when we’ll have time to eat again.”

Tony supposed that was good advice, even though the fine meal had turned into ash in his mouth and he was forcing himself to eat, much the same way he did whenever Rhodey got pissed that he wasn’t taking care of himself. The way Obie had, before-- he cut that though off at the neck, refused to let it have any space in his head.

“So, if it’s nothing,” Tony said, going ahead and taking the plunge. “What are we going to do when we get back to our quarters? Play backgammon?”

There was a startled flash of something in Barnes’ gaze; shock, interest, Tony wasn’t sure, but his tongue darted out and wet his lips, as if there was a specific something he had in mind. And then his eyes dropped suggestively and he did a slow crawl back up until he was locking eyes with Tony and there was everything that could possibly be answered in that expression. “Was… there something else you _wanted_?”

Tony considered, for a few seconds, the hold out pistol and its two or possibly three bullets. Shooting Barnes and then himself for playing this stupid game of who-would-blink-first was sounding really good, right about then.

“Either commit, Barnes,” Tony told him, “or decide I’m not worth it.”

“What?”

“I’m saying, fish, Barnes, or cut bait. You can’t do both. Did you kiss me because you wanted to, or because you needed the flim-flam?”

Barnes’ eyes were the size of damn tea saucers and Tony was beginning to regret letting himself think, because obviously, he was stupid, obviously he was wrong, obviously he was misreading everything from one side of the text and back.

And then Barnes kissed him again.

It wasn’t slow and sensual, needy and deep as the first kiss. It was hard. It was fast. It was over before Tony even knew how to respond to it. But it was a kiss. It did actually involve Barnes’ mouth on his, and the deep slide of Barnes’ tongue inside.

“Call me Bucky, would you?”


	7. An Advection of Sensibility

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... finally the boys get to taking their clothes off ON PURPOSE...
> 
> Smut, for the smut-adverse, you can just skip this chapter. Nothing of plot relevance happens here. They have sex and enjoy it and are not interrupted. (I guess I was in a good mood this week)

It was all Bucky could do not to grab Tony’s hand right then and drag him back to their tiny quarters. He’d seen enough of Tony’s skin in the last few days, accidentally, he might have assumed it would be enough to last him, except in all the ways it wasn’t anywhere close to enough.

Not to mention the fact that there was a difference in tone between looking accidentally and being invited to look and touch and taste and…

Damn it, he needed to get a fucking grip. Tony hadn’t invited him to do _anything_ more than just kiss.

And nothing, really, had changed. Tony still needed to eat. The man simply did not take proper care of himself, and it was a shock to realize how much Bucky wanted to do it for him.

Bucky crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. The only thing he allowed himself to do, and it was hardly polite, but he was going to do it anyway, was pushed his foot up onto Tony’s chair, his calf pressing against Tony’s knee. That little bit of illicit contact sent a thrill right down his spine, and it might have, actually, been enough to get him through the meal without losing his goddamn mind, except that Tony smirked at him.

And put his hand on Bucky’s ankle.

He stroked the bare skin just above Bucky’s sock, a single swipe of his thumb, and then it was over.

But Bucky was on fire. He burned for it.

He made a soft, almost whining noise in his throat and Tony looked at him, that smirk getting more pronounced and wicked by the second. “You deserve that,” he said, “for playing this game with me.”

Bucky did his best to look offended, but the way Tony snorted into what remained of his vegetables suggested he wasn’t doing a particularly good job of it. Hard, really, to be all that stern when Tony was grinning like a kid at Christmas.

Tony couldn’t possibly eat any slower if he was trying; Bucky could practically see him counting as he chewed.

“Are you doin’ that t’ punish me,” Bucky asked him, finally, “or ‘cause you don’t actually want t’ go back to the room?”

“Both?” Tony shrugged, looking up. He had to have chewed that bite of rutabaga enough to liquify it. _Honestly_. “Why can’t it be both?”

Bucky’s face must have been doing something without his permission.

“Yeah, no, you don’t need to make that face, Hermes of Praxiteles,” Tony said, then rolled his eyes at Bucky’s increasingly confused look. “He’s only got one arm. It’s a relatively recent discovery, don’t you read the papers?”

“Not usually, no,” Bucky said.

“Beside the point,” Tony waved it away. “What I mean to say is, I am not in the slightest -- I mean, have you looked in a mirror in the last few years? -- upset, offended, or rejecting any advanced on my person that you’re making.”

“Sensin’ a but, here,” Bucky noted.

“If I said I didn’t have the best track record, would you accept that as a reason for hesitancy?”

“If I said who you been with, an’ how bad it’s gone is about the least thing on m’ mind, would it put you at ease?” Bucky shrugged one shoulder. “I ain’t… You don’t even know what I’m like, what we’d be like together an’ you’re already plannin’ an end to it?”

“Just making future predictions based on established trends,” Tony said.

Bucky gave him a flat look. “Biology ain’t chemistry, an’ matters of th’ heart don’t adhere to a timetable.”

“He says that now,” Tony announced to an invisible audience, “but just--”

Bucky kissed him again, but honestly. What the hell else was he supposed to do? “Stop,” he said. “Jus’... let what happens happen, yeah?”

Tony sat back, a little dazed and the smile on his face was as beautiful as it was loopy, and Bucky couldn’t help but respond to it.

“All right, Bucky,” Tony said, and there was an impossible thrill of possessiveness and need that went right down Bucky’s spine at the sound of his name on Tony’s lips. “We’ll try it your way.”

There was a part of him that was in a damn hurry to get Tony back to the room, naked, and on his back before he could change his mind. The rest of Bucky was pretty sure that -- while exciting and fun -- would be a mistake. He tempted Tony into eating half a creme brulee with him, and finished off the bottle of wine. They were giggling, Tony half supporting himself against Bucky’s arm, as they headed back to the sleeping quarters.

Even inebriated, both on wine and on just Tony himself, Bucky kept a weather eye out, but he didn’t spot any deadly spiders lurking on the ceiling, or around corners.

If they were Natalia’s targets, she either hadn’t made them yet, or was waiting for a better opportunity.

They were through the door before Tony stopped moving. He came to a dead stop right inside the room, turned, and kissed Bucky like he was drowning and Bucky was air. His lips settled on Bucky’s and he tasted like wine. Bucky moaned, low in his throat, and his hands slid down Tony’s back, mapping out those blacksmith’s shoulders, along his ribs, and settled at his hips. Bucky twisted his fingers into the loops on Tony’s trousers, pulled them closer. Nothing between them but cloth and heat and longing.

Tony got to work on Bucky’s shirt, determined that even clothing was too much between them. With a rough cry, Tony pushed him back, against the door. Rolled his hips and Bucky could feel how hard Tony was, the length of him pressed into Bucky’s thigh.

“You said,” Tony said, rocking against him, “we were going to do it your way. What’s your way?”

“Gonna strip all your clothes off an’ lick you all over,” Bucky said, a promise or a threat or a plea, all in one. Tony shivered against him, clutching at Bucky’s hair near the nape of his neck, bringing him down for another one of those heated, wet kisses.

“Yeah?” Tony asked. “Got any particular place in mind?”

Bucky’s mind went blank with wanting. He wanted to touch his mouth to the small of Tony’s back, to the sensitive skin behind his ear, the crook of his elbow. Wanted to sample the flavor of Tony’s waist, to lick along the side of his throat. Wanted everything and all of it. Other things, too. Wanted to suck at his nipple and tease at the ticklish spot just under his navel. Wanted to bite the sweet curve of his ass and nuzzle along his shoulder blade.

“Everywhere, _everywhere_ , Tony,” Bucky was begging, knew that he was, and couldn’t feel any shame about it. He struggled with the buttons on Tony’s shirt, shoved the linen off Tony’s shoulders. Tony got tangled in his bracers for a moment, elbows out and wrists circled with the black straps. Not even pinned down, but Bucky lunged for for a taste while Tony was entwined, licking at that plump, perfectly pink nipple until it pebbled under Bucky’s tongue, until Tony was gasping, forgetting that he couldn’t get his arms free, one hand clenching in Bucky’s hair to keep him right where he was, the other opening and closing in spasms of pleasure.

“I want, yes, I want that,” Tony said, and he struggled out of his shirt, pushing everything down, and his trousers went with it, puddling on the floor. Bucky shoved Tony backward, toward the bed, eager. Peeled out of his own clothes, not paying any mind to the fabric, or the fact that at least two of his buttons hit the wall.

“I want,” Bucky said, lifting Tony up just a little to get him onto the bed and crawling after him with intent. “I want--” he nipped at Tony’s neck “-- want to spread you out and fuck you. Want--”

“Yes,” Tony said, dragging Bucky up by his hair until their mouths slotted together for another kiss. Great god in the heavens, Bucky wanted so damn much. Hungry for more of Tony’s mouth, he set about exploring, mapping that territory until Tony’s taste was burned into his memory, seared onto his tongue, until there was nothing that could ever take it from him.

His need was growing, huge and hungry. Bucky’s hands slid under Tony’s back, pulled and prodded and pushed until he was laying in the cradle of Tony’s thighs. “Want to fill you up. Right here. So deep.”

“Need that,” Tony said, letting his head fall back, exposing his throat as he panted for breath. “Need you, baby, come on, come on.”

Bucky made good on his word, licking his way down Tony’s throat, across the sharp ridge of his his clavicle. Fingers leading the way, he teased one nipple, then the other. Thumbed one, over and over until Tony was rocking with the sensation. Tony gasped, worked his way up to be able to watch, leaning hard on his elbow.

Bucky mouthed at one desire-rigid peak, lipping it, then licking, then sucking. Tugged at it with his lips. When he looked up again, Tony was pink-cheeked from wanting, his lower lip gnawed and puffy. The sight of Tony’s nipples, hard and slick from Bucky’s mouth, sent ripples of heat into his gut. Helpless sounds of pleasure came out of Bucky’s throat, and he worked his way further down Tony’s perfect body.

“Need more,” he told Tony, and then closed his mouth over the front panel of Tony’s underthings, tugging the light cotton down with his teeth.

“Holy hell, you are a sinner,” Tony gasped, watching as if he couldn’t do anything else. His hands were back in Bucky’s hair, pushing and nudging.

“You want this, baby,” Bucky teased and let warm air flow across Tony’s cock, hard and bent a little to the left.

“Yes, yes,” Tony murmured and his heels hit the edge of the bunk, letting him get leverage. He lifted his hips until he was prodding against the underside of Bucky’s chin, the velvet skin of his cock brushing against Bucky’s throat. “Please.”

_Please._

The word penetrated the fuzz in Bucky’s head, white hot need more intoxicating than wine.

He could, he would, _please_ Tony.

“I need it, need it so much,” Tony was saying, his head whipping back and forth on the bedsheets, making his hair stand up in crazy corkscrews.

“I see that,” Bucky murmured. He took Tony in, a single, lascivious taste. Lapped at him until Tony was soaking wet, shaking, needy. Sucked that proud, magnificent cock back. Swallowed around it as Tony moaned and wailed. He groaned over Tony’s thin scream, his electric responsiveness. A small spurt of precome and the taste of Tony burst over his tongue.

Sweet, bitter, salty, perfect. Tony’s hips jerked and Bucky had to pin him in place, bound his thighs and pressed down. Tony twisted and writhed and Bucky followed, seeking every slick droplet, tongued at every fold.

He punished Tony with his mouth, relentless, relishing every muffled cry and every sobbing moan.

Bucky’s cock ached, neglected, but he licked at Tony still, tenderly.

“Bucky, Bucky, wait--” Tony was struggling against the pleasure, too much, too fast.

No, no waiting. Bucky held him down, kept him there. “I got you, you can--”

“Gonna,” Tony said, and it sounded like an apology.

“Want you to,” Bucky told him. But it was more than want, it was need, it was compulsion. Tony arched up again, thrusting into Bucky’s mouth over and over, until he was shuddering.

Until he spilled over Bucky’s tongue.

Bucky swallowed it down, licking, lapping, tender and teasing at the sensitive skin until he was sure he’d gotten every last bit of it, and Tony was practically crying. Tony’s taste was addictive, it sunk into Bucky with sharp little teeth, clinging to every bit of him.

Triumphant, pleased with himself, Bucky nuzzled at Tony, nursed him through his shudders until Tony’s thighs went slack and he was making noises like soft sighs, his fingers carding through Bucky’s hair instead of yanking at it.

“Still with me, love?” Bucky asked him, kissing one thigh.

“No,” Tony said, voice sappy and drunk with it. “You killed me.”

“And I shall do it again,” Bucky threatened. “If you tell me you have slick--”

“Carrageenan,” Tony gasped out. “In… in my grooming box.”

And so there was, the thick, slick goo in a glass, twist-topped jar like a lady’s facial cream. Tony shivered as Bucky smeared the goop around; it was slippery and a little cold, the coloring of it rosy and making the skin on Tony’s ass even more pink and perfect.

Tony might have been sated, satisfied, but he still lounged like some perfect god on the bed, watching intently through slitted eyes, as Bucky played him open. Bucky’s dick was throbbing in time with his heart, eager to get on with it, to feel Tony’s body clenching around him, but he refused to give in. He worked Tony slowly, each twist and tug designed to tempt the muscle to unclench, to relax and let Bucky in.

By the time Bucky was up to two fingers, Tony was rocking against him, biting his lip, stifling his own cries.

“God, it’s too much, you’re too much,” Tony was whimpering, and Bucky allowed himself a smile.

“All for you,” Bucky said. He knew he was big, lovers had been in turns awed and dismayed with him, but when Tony finally got impatient and shoved Bucky back, straddling Bucky’s thighs, he only looked eager.

“French letters,” he said, digging in his bag again, and pulled out a waxed envelope with a rolled sheepskin condom. “Easier cleanup.”

There would be time to have nothing between them, some later date, Bucky thought, and he nodded. He almost went off like a rocket when Tony touched him, smoothed the skin over Bucky’s cock. He tied the little strings, and the ends of the knots tickled at Bucky’s balls, making him groan and shiver.

He jerked up into the touch as Tony stroked him a few times through the condom. Tony lifted himself, then scowled. “You could help, you know,” he said, when pushing back a few times just knocked Bucky’s dick aside.

Bucky snorted, then got a hand down there to hold himself steady. He choked back on a guttural moan as Tony’s opening rubbed against the head of his cock. Tony reached up, braced himself against the underside of the top bunk and rode Bucky down. Each thrust took him deeper, each rocking slide soothing that ache inside Bucky’s chest. Need and eagerness raced in his veins and he had to force himself to keep his eyes open. He didn’t want anything except to watch Tony take him through his pleasure.

His hands were on Tony’s hips, tight, encouraging. His muscles turned to steel and he shook under Tony’s body. The pulse of him echoed in Tony, and Tony clenched down. The slick slide went tight and perfect and crystalline. A tremor ripped through him and Tony’s body quaked.

“Come on, come on,” Tony was chanting as he slid up and down, practically bouncing on Bucky’s dick, all the while stroking himself with one hand, hard again and quivering. Bucky wasn’t sure if Tony was directing that at Bucky, or at himself.

Bucky slid a hand under Tony’s ass, rubbed at the spot where they were joined together, angled himself a little, until he was nailing that sweet, sensitive place deep inside Tony’s body.

He didn’t know how much longer he would last; Tony was that beautiful, that responsive, and he’d already come the once. Could he--

“Oh, Christ,” Tony swore, and suddenly there was heat and wet between them, Tony’s dick was jerking in spasmodic rhythm, painting his come across Bucky’s chest, his belly, hitting the underside of his jaw, and it was too much.

Everything inside him stiffened and melted and all that heat went straight down his spine and up through his balls, and--

“God, god, god.” Bucky was a shivering wreck, every nerve on fire, every muscle unravelling until he whited out, mouth gaping in ecstasy. He was poised, for one perfect second, on the precipice and then he tumbled over it, into oblivion.

When he came back to himself, Tony was sprawled on his chest, heedless of the wet, sticky fluid that was rapidly cooling between them, chin resting on his folded hands as he studied Bucky’s face like it held the answers to every question in the universe.

Bucky grimaced. “So much for containing the mess,” he said.

Tony laughed, poked Bucky in the ribs several times until Bucky was squirming, and grabbing at Tony’s hands. “Don’t blame me, I didn’t design the system.”

“Oh, I blame you, all right,” Bucky said. He rolled them over until he was pressing Tony into the thin mattress. “I blame you, and I’m going to punish you for it, by making you use the system. Over and over and over.”

Tony held up one finger with a look of concern. “Can I sleep first?”

Bucky kissed him, thorough and hot and needy. “Maybe.” He reached down and stroked up Tony’s cock, flacid, but still sensitive until Tony was arching up. “Maybe not.”

“Mean, buttercup,” Tony said. He was panting for breath and grinning so hard that his eyes were mere slits. “Very mean.”

“You love it,” Bucky said.

“I could grow to love it,” Tony admitted.

Bucky’s chest ached with sudden feeling. “Okay, that was… yeah, you can sleep, baby. For a bit.” He kissed Tony again, then got up to get a damp towel to clean them up with. By the time he finished wiping off Tony’s chest, untied the condom, and snuggled back into the bunk with his lover, Tony was out like a lamp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are curious about my research, carrageenan is a goo made from boiled red seaweed. It was popularized in China and Japan around the 1400s or so as a personal lubricant, as well as a food ingredient for thickening and also for general moisturizing. It's been shown to decrease some sexually transmitted diseases, as well, including HPV. You can still get carrageenan as a lube these days, Sliquid brand is made from it and is advertised as a vegan friendly lube. It's also found in soy and almond milk, so quite prevalent, even today.


	8. The Key Features of the Asthenosphere

Waking up was never one of Tony’s favorite things. He often chased sleep with poor results and finally being folded into that dark embrace often lead to nightmares and unknown terrors, with the consequences of waking even more exhausted than if he’d never slept in the first place.

Waking up in Bucky’s arms, one real and warm and pliant, the other hard and chilly but equally solid, was an entirely different experience.

He’d fallen into dreamless slumber with almost no effort whatsoever, sweat still drying in his hair and along the back of his neck, a soothing, rumbling voice in his ear. He woke once, when the airship passed near a brief squall, the crack of thunder and the brief flashes of lightening before the ship turned starboard and got out of range, had shaken him out of sleep.

Bucky had leaned up on one elbow to watch Tony’s face in the play of light against the sky; they’d spoken of ridiculous, inconsequential things; did penguins have knees, had Ulysses S. Grant’s Christian name really been Hiram, or was that just a legend? Was it possible to breach gravity of the planet long enough to explore the outer reaches of the atmosphere? They’d spoken of other things, too, the pain that Tony suffered from the machine embedded in his chest, the terrible moments where Bucky recalled losing his arm. The madness Hydra had put him through and how he’d eventually escaped.

They’d spoken of everything, and anything, except for the fact that they were still naked in each other’s arms, with every intention of remaining that way.

Tony didn’t want to speak of it, for fear that he might somehow wake up from a dream that he wasn’t sure he was in.

Whether Bucky felt similarly or not remained unknown.

The storm had moved off, or the ship had done so, and in the quiet stillness of the early morning, Tony had tucked his cheek against Bucky’s broad, smooth chest and gone back to sleep, soothed by the rhythm of his breathing, the sound of his heart, and the feeling, however brief it might be, of being loved and wanted.

That morning, Tony woke in easy stages, like floating up from the depths of the ocean.

He blinked his eyes open and discovered that Bucky was watching him sleep, a ridiculously sappy smile on his face.

“Good morning, sunlight,” Tony said, rubbing sleepcrust from his eyelashes. “You didn’t have to wait for me to wake up.”

“You’re layin’ on my arm,” Bucky pointed out, wiggling metal fingers, warm from Tony’s body heat, against Tony’s ribs.

“So I am,” Tony said. He struggled a bit and Bucky pulled the limb out from under Tony’s side. The skin there was a bit tender, and when Tony ran a hand down his ribs, he felt each plate and cog that had been impressed on his skin. When he finished squirming around and completed his self inspection, he found Bucky even closer, mouth mere inches from Tony’s forehead.

“Hey there,” Bucky said, and his breath was warm, sour from sleep, his hair a frightful tangle and his cheeks a little dark from his beard filling in. Nonetheless, he was the most beautiful thing Tony had ever seen. “You… you uh, keep lookin’ at me like you think I’m gonna disappear, or somethin’.”

Well, Tony hadn’t put words to it like that, exactly. “I… haven’t had a partner since--” he brushed his hand over the arc-reactor, feeling the lumpy scars around it. “--and I was never what you’d call a repeat offender.” He’d gone that route a few times, and it had never ended well. These days -- well, before the arc-reactor had gone in -- he’d taken to being the first out the door, rather than deal with the pain of betrayal, or of finding out that the other person didn’t want anything but money, power, or position. It was lonely, but it had served him well enough.

Except now, clearly, he was in unchartered waters.

He couldn’t just leave Bucky money for a velocipede and a flower. They were stuck together for some time, and Tony wasn’t sure if he should be terrified, relieved, or leery.

“I ain’t scared of you, or this,” Bucky said, teasing. “Let’s just… not put a name on this, right now? We can enjoy this, each other, an’ do what we set out to do, without makin’ any promises?”

Tony nodded. “That seems a wise plan,” he agreed, even though, for some stupid reason, that hurt, it ached, that Bucky didn’t want anything more, didn’t even want to try for something else. Just sex, Tony, he told himself. Don’t build castles in the sky, you know how that goes.

Tony Stark, playboy, millionaire, inventor, genius… who would have given all of those things for just one person to love him.

His eyes burned and he blinked again, rubbing as if still getting rid of sleep. He was feeling maudlin, he knew. Afterglow, all worn off. Rhodey loved him. Jarvis had loved him. His mother… he had people who cared about him, it was fine, it was all fine.

And he wasn’t going to lie, the sex had been magnificent, and if Bucky wanted to do that again, Tony certainly wasn’t going to say no.

Which was good, since Bucky, sticky morning breath or not, was nuzzling at Tony’s throat and it didn’t take particularly long until Tony shoved those stupid thoughts down and away, and was responding to Bucky’s overtures with enthusiasm.

Maybe it would work out -- one of his colleagues, Dr. Banner, a specialist in natural science, had told him that humans form attachments, despite any and all initial impressions, based on proximity. The more time Bucky spent around Tony, the more attached Bucky would become. Of course, the complementary theory of that was true as well, the more attached _Tony_ would become. And since Tony was obviously more attached to start with, he was just going to get hurt worse if it broke off, and this was why he did not do relationships--

That thought was cut off sharply as Bucky nudged his way down Tony’s chest and licked at a bruise forming over Tony’s hip.

_Hnnng_. There was no way Tony was going to be able to continue to brood if Bucky was-- oh, god -- doing _that_.

Tony wound his fingers through Bucky’s tangle of hair and held on tight, letting himself just feel and enjoy and… oh, sweet Christ, that was _good_.

***

Bucky ordered a delivery of eggs, toast, and fruit to the room while Tony availed himself of their minimal ration of hot water to shave and give himself a birdbath. Bucky scratched at his chin, but he wasn’t going to bother to shave until they were landbound again. He’d made that mistake a few times; he’d lost his dominant hand in the accident and he needed absolute steady ground for shaving right handed.

Which did not, apparently, keep Tony from scowling at him when Bucky wiped himself down with a towel, finger combed his hair into an untidy queue at the base of his neck and was willing to call it good enough.

“I--” Bucky held out his left hand, the clockwork was a pretty damn good replacement, but some fine work was just not possible. “I’ll shave when we touch down. No one up here’s expecting me to be clean cut.”

Tony shrugged, absently. “I can do it for you, if you want. You just keep scratching at your face like it’s bothering you.”

“Does, for the first day or so,” Bucky admitted. “Once it’s grown out a bit, it’s not so bad.”

“Well, unless you’re planning to grow a face-rug, sit down, lean back, and let me do it.”

Bucky considered arguing; getting his face torn to tatters was going to suck, even if he did heal fast, but Tony’s fussy little beard looked a lot harder to maintain than Bucky’s prefered clean shave, so maybe Tony could manage.

He found himself in a chair and swallowed hard to avoid the bad memories when Tony tipped him back a little. A hot towel over his face to soften the whiskers and was Tony actually humming? That was kinda sweet.

“Thanks,” Bucky said. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

“Of course not,” Tony said. “I’ll have you know I’m very contrary. If I thought I had to, you’d find me doing everything but.”

Bucky snickered, then got himself under control, because Tony was going to be very close to his face with a very sharp implement.

“Personally,” Tony continued, stropping the blade on the strap, “you’re a brave man. Letting me near you with a razor.”

“If you had the intent of slitting my throat,” Bucky pointed out, “I’d think it would have been easier while I was sleepin’.”

“True,” Tony said. He tested the blade gingerly, then whisked together shaving cream. The soap lathered well, smelled of citrus and rose, cedarwood and pepper. It was Tony’s own smell that lingered on his clothes and clung to the skin of his throat, and Bucky was suddenly hard and needy, while trapped in the chair.

Tony removed the towel, checked the stiffness of Bucky’s beard by running a thumb up the side of his cheek.

The smell of shaving cream grew stronger as Tony used the badger-haired brush to smooth the lather onto Bucky’s cheeks, over his chin, down the side of his throat.

Bucky let his eyes flutter closed as Tony pulled the skin on his right cheek taut and ran the blade down, removing the hair. He rinsed the blade in the bowl, the movements slow, deliberate. Soothing. Tony took his time, never rushing. There was something dreamy about it, domestic and comfortable. Tony hummed, his voice rich and soulful.

“All right,” Tony said. “You can stop squinching your eyes shut, I’m done and you’re not dead.”

Bucky opened one eye in an excess of caution, then grinned. “Never thought you were gonna do anything.” Tony threw the towel at him and Bucky wiped the last bits of excess soap off, marveling over the close shave. He could do it, if he needed to, and he took his time, on the ground, but he rarely bothered, letting his beard grow in patchy and then doing a piss-poor job of it.

Not like anyone at Hydra cared what he looked like.

“Thank you.”

Tony leaned over, rubbing his cheek against Bucky’s. “Consider it a gift to myself,” he said, flirty and sly. “Beard burn makes me nervous.”

“Wouldn’t want that,” Bucky said, drawing Tony in for a kiss. And then another one, just because he could.

***

Someone rapped on the door. Breakfast, Tony thought, finally.

He slid open the panel and Bucky barely got a word out before there was a ringing sound, like an immense gong…

Did someone hit him? Tony staggered backward, eyes crossed and fuzzy. He felt all over hot, suddenly, and a roil of smoke poured into the room.

“Rumlow!” Bucky yelled nonsense, and Tony couldn’t breathe, couldn’t keep his balance. He fell to the floor, tripping over his own shoes. He ended up on the floor, staring under the bunk where a pair of brilliant green eyes gazed back. There were shots fired, explosive in the small space, and muffled swearing.

Tony stared at the woman under his bunk.

The whole ship lurched.

Bucky fell backward. He hit the wall with one shoulder, leaving a dent. He snapped the gun’s cylinder open, reloading even as he rolled to his feet.

“Stark,” the woman said, reaching one hand out to him. “Come on, this way.”

“Oh, hell, no,” Tony said, or tried to say. He didn’t have the first bloody damn clue what was going on, but he remembered he was supposed to be wary of red-headed women with full mouths, even if he couldn’t quite remember _why_ at the moment.

“Tony, Tony, get up, you have to--”

The woman grabbed his ankle, tried to pull him under the bed. “Come on! James, come on!”

“Tasha?” Bucky whirled, kicking the bunk up and showering the room with blankets and clothing.

“Wait, wait, I thought she was the _bad guy_ ,” Tony pointed out, which was quite brilliant of him, given that he was still dizzy from being hit in the face with -- was that their breakfast tray? How rude! -- and spinning around from smoke inhalation.

Somewhere, a bell was ringing frantically.

“Lesser of two evils,” Bucky said. He dropped to the floor. “Devil I know, and all that.”

A rippling set of explosions started near the stern of the ship. The boiler.

Tony’s blood ran cold. “Oh, fuck me running. Go, go, go. You got a way off this boat?”

He crabbed, hands and knees, after the woman. There was a hatch under their damn bunk that lead into the maintenance tracks.

“Got a dropskiff,” she said, tossing a quick glance over her shoulder. “James, come on! Leave him -- leave him, we’ll take care of Crossbones later!”

“I am gonna _peel your skin off and use it for glove leather_ ,” Bucky was promising someone, and Tony wasn’t sure who it was. Probably not him, leastways. Maybe the woman in front of him, Tasha? Or maybe the man behind them.

Either way, Tony really didn’t want to be on a burning airship.

There were people running above them. Screams.

Shrieks.

Pleas for help.

Tony’s heart ached; he didn’t know what to do.

“You cannot save them,” Tasha said. She shimmied down a ladder. Tony followed after her, and then the three of them were in a dank corridor. “This way. There are plenty of skimmers, James. The crew will do their duty. Crossbones will blend in with the crowd, we cannot be with them when the ship goes down. Come on. Come on.”

Tony’s throat closed in grief and fear. Tasha led them down the corridor, away from the general noise and panic. The ship was burning. Smoke trickled in and Bucky ripped a section of his shirt off and forced it on Tony. “Tie it around your face,” he ordered, and didn’t bother to watch as he fastened a similar scrap around his own nose.

The ship rocked, falling back the other way, and Tony found himself with a sudden armful of the redhead. She put an elbow in his stomach and Tony squeaked as all his air left his lungs in a sudden whoosh.

Tasha struggled to her feet again, yanking Tony after her. They made it to a small alcove on the base of the gondola. Tasha grabbed a rope off the side of the ship, pulling down a lightweight carrier kite.

“Tash, that’s not gonna hold three of us,” Bucky said, eyeing the kite with trepidation.

“I’m light,” she protested. “We can all go.”

Bucky flexed his copper arm. “I ain’t. I can’t. I’ll bring you down.” He glanced at Tony and fear dropped Tony’s belly to the deck. “Take him. I’ll find you.”

“No, no, no, we’re not doing that,” Tony protested, and he reached for Bucky.

Bucky pulled him in for a quick kiss. “I’ll get a flitter. I’ll be fine. Meet me at Port Nix.”

“Bucky!”

Tasha was stronger than she looked. Bucky shoved him into her arms. “Take care of him!”

“No, no, wait! Bucky, no!”

Tasha pulled him toward the dropskiff. “Get on, or we will all die,” Tasha said. She yanked again, and Tony nearly fell into the skiff. Tasha didn’t wait for him to strap in, or even struggle to get away. She cut the line and pushed the skiff off, Tony barely clinging to the framework. There was a rush of cooler air, and then blackness.

Tony squirmed, trying to look back.

Tasha took them into a steep dive, panic clear on her face. They were out of range when the airship exploded.

_Barely_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh. sorry?
> 
> PS - Please try not to discuss IW spoilers in my comments for people who may not yet have the time/mode/means, or inclination to battle opening weekend crowds. tyvm
> 
> PPS - Also, if I missed a posting, I'm sorry? I don't think I did, but the post-dates seem to indicate that I did? anyway...


	9. The Impossibility of Absolute Zero

Bucky had been on battlefields before; seen hundreds of bodies, and the dead who hadn’t quite stopped breathing before.

The remains of the passengers were subtly worse; these weren’t soldiers who knew what they were getting into, or people seeking adventure, honor, to defend their homelands. These were unarmed civilians who had the bad luck of ending up on the same airship as Brock Rumlow. At least, Bucky prayed as he leaped over piles of bodies and bits of rubble, that it was Rumlow who’d caused this, and that he hadn’t just put Tony straight into the hands of his assassin.

There was no denying that Natasha was an assassin, one of the best. But he couldn’t see the point in playing the role of rescuer. She’d had every opportunity to kill them -- Bucky had no idea how long she’d been beneath their chambers, but pretending a rescue didn’t really seem like the Black Widow style. Even if she was up to no good, she was at least going to keep Tony alive until she got what she was after and any delay was for the best.

Rumlow had escaped him, disappearing into the smoke and confusion.

Bucky was just going to have to let him be lost. He didn’t have time to track the man down.

The ship rocked with a series of explosions as fuel tanks were touched by the fire. Not much time left at all. The wreck was going to go down.

He scurried down two levels until he was deep in the bowels of the gondola. He discovered a small closet of cleaning supplies and sundries and sealed himself in. Fire fed on air, and Bucky’s plans involved opening a hole in the side of the ship. There was nothing he could do for most of the passengers, but there was no sense in making a bad situation worse.

He got up against the hull and started tearing his way through. Fresh air poured into the room, and Bucky took a moment to stare into the night sky. Dozens of little escape kites fluttered around the ship like moths.

Bucky leaned out, took a few deep breaths, and stared down. They were over the ocean, nothing but black in all directions. The ship was drifting, still in the air as the heat and the tatters of the balloon keeping them aloft but it wouldn’t be much longer. The air was filled with smoke, impossible to take a reading off the stars even if he’d had the time. No way to know where, exactly, on their route they were.

Bucky stripped his pants off. He tied a few knots, at the waist, and capped off one leg. The fabric wasn’t waterproof, but he could rig a float, once the material was sealed with water. He shoved a few pieces of hull into the legs, to aid buoyancy.

His makeshift life-jacket was done when he heard a soft, sobbing sound.

_Shit._

He flipped through the supplies relatively quickly and found the child in moments; a girl with pale hair, so light as to be silver. She was, maybe four or five years old.

“Hey,” Bucky said, unable to help himself. He dropped to one knee. “You know where your mom is?”

The girl stared at him with huge eyes. “She’s gone.”

Bucky didn’t have time for this. He really did not. _Fuck._ “Come with me.”

The girl reached for him and Bucky let her wrap her arms around his neck. “Mister, why do you have a clockwork arm?”

“I lost my real arm,” Bucky said. He used his belt to secure his pants around his neck, and then linked it to the girl’s pinafore strings. It wasn’t the best job, but it was all he had time for.

“That was clumsy of you,” she said. “You should keep better track of your body parts.”

Bucky was startled into a laugh. “That I should. What’s your name, honey?”

“Kobik. What’s yours?”

“Bucky,” he said. He made the hole in the hull a little larger and forced his way through, trying to shield the girl from the sharp edges.

“Are we gonna jump?”

“Yep,” Bucky said.

“Is it going to hurt?”

“Yep.”

***

The water was bitterly cold.

Freezing.

So cold that there was a scrim of ice, almost lacy and delicate, that floated like slurry along the top portion of the waves.

Bucky cut through the water on his back, protecting Kobik as much as possible. He struggled to the surface, somewhat aided by the buoyancy of the wood he’d taken over the side with him. He could hardly breathe, the air was so cold. It crystallized in his lungs and froze there. His heart stuttered with the shock of it. Swimming was complicated by the cold, the dark, the girl who clung to his neck.

His own metal arm which was dragging him down.

He surfaced, struggling to breathe out, then grabbed the one untied cuff of his denims and blew air into it. It was slow going, but the water sealed off the fabric, making it almost airtight. His pants provided some additional floatation, but they were going to die, and that fairly soon, if he didn’t get them out of the water as soon as possible.

The girl didn’t fight him in her panic, at least. Her eyes were wide and as blue as ice, her hair pale and shining in the faint light. Bucky made sure his grip on her was secure, then turned in a slow circle, searching for light, for more people, for wreckage they could climb on. The air was filled with the sounds of the burning airship, screams of the injured and terrified. The pounding surf.

There!

Closest to them, one of the small rescue balloons. The basket was sideways in the water, but still afloat. Either the basket had launched without passengers, or they’d landed badly, but it was currently empty. Bucky gave the girl a quick squeeze and then floundered through the water toward it.

“Get in, get in,” he told her when they finally reached the side of the basket. She struggled to move, her clothes laden down the water. “I’m gonna tip it, then I’ll get in.” Bucky wasn’t sure how he was going to manage that, but better to get her up and out of the water.

She stared at him like a wounded animal from the depths of the basket as he started rocking the craft. It turned out to be easier than he expected to get in -- the water and the girl’s weight lowered the basket in the water so he only had to pull himself over the side, like it was a canoe. The basket sank even lower under his weight, and his first order of business was to start bailing.

A couple of the buoy-bags on the basket’s side proved water-tight, and he set the girl to filling the bags with water and handing them up to him. She needed to keep moving. Wet and cold as she was, she could still freeze to death, even through they were out of the ocean. When the basket was mostly floating, he set to seeing what supplies were secured to the side.

“Oh, thank Christ,” Bucky murmured. The emergency kit contained a packet of Coston flares, sealed in wax paper envelopes to keep them dry, as well as an alchemic fire set. “Kobik, here, hold this, as still as you can.” Bucky struggled with the phial stoppers, then carefully poured the powdered magnesium into the heater. Tapped every speck of dust into the bottom.

“What is it?”

“Portable fire,” Bucky told her, which was pretty close to true without getting into alchemy lessons. He dribbled water into the second opening. “Turn your face away.” Sometimes the mix of water and salts could explode violently on contact. Bucky closed the heater. “Okay, shake it up.”

The components mixed in the bottom of the tin and the mixture produced an exothermic reaction. He used the key on the side to wind up the interior mechanism, which would keep the materials stirred, and spin them slowly through the heating coils inside the lantern. Bucky took the lantern and hung it from the basket’s handle. “Hold your hands up to that, you can get your fingers warm. I’ll see if I can’t get the canopy up, that’ll help keep us warm.”

“You’re real smart,” the girl told him. “Better’n the Baron.”

“Which baron?” Bucky asked. He didn’t really care at the moment, getting the girl back to her proper caretakers was less important right now than just keeping them alive.

“Zemo,” the girl told him. “He’s supposed to be adopting me.” She glanced at Bucky, who was struggling to unfold the waxed canvas canopy. “I don’t like him.”

“Given the situation,” Bucky said, “you may not need to worry about that.” He spread the canvas over the basket’s frame, enclosing them in darkness. He moved around the edge, tying it in place. The basket resembled nothing more than a floating egg. The heat lantern could warm the small space, and as long as the seas didn’t get too rough, they would be safe enough for a little while.  

“Now what?” Kobik asked, when he settled into the bottom of the basket and lifted the girl into his lap. They curled together like wet, miserable kittens.

“Now? We wait for someone to rescue us.” If there’d been a paddle in the basket originally, it wasn’t there now, and even if it were, it wasn’t too likely that even Bucky could get them anyplace useful. They’d wait for the rescue boats, use the flares, and mingle with the refugees. He could offload the girl to someone better able to care for her, and then make his way to Port Nix.

That was the plan.

Right up until something bumped the bottom of their basket.

Kobik screamed, and Bucky clamped a hand over her mouth. “Shush.” Carefully, he squirmed free to get a look -- another boat or rescue vehicle?

They weren’t that lucky.

Bucky peered over the side of the basket and a huge shape moved under them, black as night with a patch of white. The orca breached the water’s surface and nudged them again with its nose.

A killer whale was bad enough. Another broke the water’s edge, opening a mouth full of enormous teeth and whistled. A third, fourth. An entire pod.

Bucky caught a glimpse of the copper wire and bands, the array of transponder crystals. Fuck. He sank slowly back into the basket.

“What is it?”

“Trouble.”

***

The child was only five, but Bucky didn’t have any other hope. The killer whale pod was under the control of Hydra, and if Bucky had to guess, he’d peg Rumlow as having the controller. How the damned fool had survived the airship blast was anyone’s notion.

“You have to help me,” Bucky told her, seriously. “A life for a life.” Rumlow probably wouldn’t have interest in a child. There was no reason to do Kobik any harm.

The girl only stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“The whales are taking us to a bad man,” Bucky said. “A bad man who wants to hurt me, who probably wants to hurt my friends. I’m going to surrender to him, in exchange for your life. Do you understand that?”

Kobik considered that for a long moment, then nodded.

Bucky rummaged through his pocket and found a five dollar coin. “Take this to the nearest police man or military man, you know what an army man looks like? The uniform?”

She nodded again.

“I want you to tell them to contact Colonel Rhodes, tell him Tony’s in trouble, can you do that for me?”

The girl tucked the coin into her pinafore. “Uh-huh.”

“Good girl,” Bucky said. He squelched the nasty worm of guilt in his belly. He was probably putting the girl in danger, but she’d been a hell of a trooper and he and Steve had run messages when they were but boys for bootleggers and smugglers, as well as more respectable jobs. _And look how you turned out_ , Steve’s voice that was nowhere but in his head said.

The pod nudged them and Bucky didn’t dare to try to make a swim for it. The water was still freezing, the distance too great, and those teeth were entirely ridiculous. Hydra had selected animals that it could control well, both for endurance and for relative native intelligence. Whales and dolphins were pretty smart. Hydra could give them simple instructions and they could be counted on to carry out their orders, even to death.

At first they’d tried sharks and other more slimy, thematically appropriate sea creatures, but the few octopuses they’d managed to collar broke conditioning easily, and with their training, they’d really made a mess of the animal control laboratories. Bucky allowed himself a brief smile for that. Zola had been in a rage over it, four scientists dead and the entire equipment array was ruined.

Bucky held the girl while the pod directed them, eventually to the deck of what was one of Hydra’s famed submersibles.

“Winter Soldier,” Rumlow called, when they were off the bow. Bucky fingered the flaregun. He might get a lucky shot, and it would depend how many men Rumlow had with him. Maybe, maybe he could manage it.

“Rumlow,” Bucky answered, because there was no reason not to. Rumlow already knew he was aboard and alive. “What do you want?”

“Hydra needs the Fist,” Rumlow said. “And there’s a hell of reward out to bring you back to the fold.”

“I handed in a resignation letter,” Bucky said, stalling. He peered between two slits in the basket. So far, he could only see Rumlow. There would be a crew of fifteen, at least, to operate the submersible, but if there weren’t any other Delta officers, Bucky might be able to take the crew. A lot of the lower end Hydra were impressed into service, chained and forced, blackmailed and beaten. “Pretty sure Rollins took possession of it. How is he, by the way?”

“Jackie? Pretty pissed at you for his broken jaw, but he’ll live,” Rumlow said. “Come on aboard, we don’t have to do this the hard way. You know you were always meant to a life of order, soldier.”

Bucky shuddered as the word slithered its way down his spine.

“Good to know I didn’t kill him,” Bucky said. “Is he with you? I could apologize.”

Rumlow chuckled. “If I believed that…”

“Rumlow, I have a civilian with me. A child. I’ll… look, I’ll do whatever you want, I just want you to promise to drop her off. Port Nix isn’t too far.”

“You’re getting soft, Soldier,” Rumlow sneered. “You break free because of the Red Room sluts, and now you’re bargaining for a little kid? You’re unworthy to be the Fist.”

“You want the job, pal, it’s yours. You have my highest recommendation.”

Rumlow scoffed. “Stand up and let me see you, Barnes.”

Bucky stood, slowly. He raised his hands and put them on top of his head. The flare gun hung on a string at the back of his neck -- he was desperate, not stupid.

The orcas nudged him closer to the submersible. He could almost jump it. Damn it, if the girl wasn’t with him, he’d just take the damn risk. His eyes darted around, the cone was manned, a single fighter. No one else on the deck. Rumlow had one hand loosely on the control mechanism for the orcas.

Two flares in the gun.

Bucky chewed his lip, trying to decide.

“And the girl.”

“Come on up, Kobik and wave. Slow. Careful.”

Kobik had to get on her tiptoes to be seen over the side of the basket, and Bucky felt a warm surge in his chest for how brave she was.

“Do we have an agreement, Rumlow?”

“I think we’ll keep her,” Rumlow said. “As insurance on your good behavior.” He ran his tongue around in his mouth like he was sucking a horehound candy. “You do what I say, she eats and nobody hurts her.”

Bucky swallowed. No, he didn’t believe Rumlow, not at all. That avarice gleam in his eyes hadn’t changed. Rumlow had no pity.

“Agreed,” Bucky said, slowly. His hand twitched. “Kobik, honey…”

“Yeah?”

“Get down!”

Bucky snagged the flare gun off his back, pointed it at Rumlow, and pulled the trigger, hoping to God it would still light, that it wasn’t waterlogged and ruined, and that he hadn’t just killed them both.


	10. An Abundance of Singularity

They were on a rock.

Tony knew there had to be a bigger land mass somewhere, since there was no way a rock this small could be in the middle of the ocean without some sort of island chain, but it was dark and Tony had no navigational reference points. The fire from the airship had filled the air with smoke and what few glimpses he could get of the stars were unconnected. Mere points of light, illuminating nothing.

There were a few scraggly trees, and the red-haired spy had built a crude lean-to between them, using the bits and pieces of her flitter. She’d brought them down for a neat landing, dropping them onto sandy beach and Tony hadn’t even gotten his feet wet.

She hadn’t spoken at all, just got to work. She glanced at him from time to time, either to make sure he wasn’t running off or to chide him for not helping with the set up of camp, but Tony had no intention of making the first move as far as starting a conversation, nor did he want to help until he felt certain that they were allies and not enemies.

He stared out into the ocean until she’d built up a fire and rather imperiously pointed at it, herding Tony to sit near it and warm himself.

She dug out a battered kitchen set, heated water to boiling for caravan tea. Tony was pretty sure she’d gotten it out of a rainwater puddle and was reluctant to drink it, but he was cold and when she shoved the mug in his face, he at least wrapped his fingers around it.

She gave him a hardtack biscuit and a lump of cheese that was so sharp the smell of it make the inside of his nose ache. He didn’t eat it, just watched her as she dipped the hardtack into her tea and nibbled on the corner.

“I did not poison cheese,” she said, her accent thick and Russian.

No, Tony imagined she didn’t; there was no point. If she wanted to kill him out here in this mess, that would be easy enough. He took a sip of the tea before forgetting he wasn’t going to drink it. It was scalding hot, but soothing on his throat and tasted more like berries and honey than tea. Strangely tasty, he ended up draining it to the dregs before he was aware of it. Which left him to gum down and swallow as best he could, the dry hardtack and sticky cheese.

“What’s the plan?” That might be a question she was easy answering. Tony wasn’t sure where her allegiances lay, or even who she was, but it was pretty certain that Bucky hadn’t trusted her. Of course, any fool would say Tony probably shouldn’t trust _Bucky_.

“I have certain skill set, very valuable,” she told him, staring into the bottom of her tin mug. “Long ago, I use these skills on behalf of motherland. No longer. I am independent contractor.”

Tony rolled his tongue around in his mouth. “And are the tzar’s men going to come after you?”

“Rasputin knows better,” she said, emotionless, which was just terrifying. The tsar’s sorcerer was the stuff of legends, and if this woman wasn’t terrified of him, she was either lying, an idiot, or a lot more dangerous than she seemed. “I take contract with Anton Vanko. He want--” she reached across the pit and tapped Tony’s chest. “This. You stole design, he claim.”

“I got the design from my father, but he could never make it work. And this one’s a lot smaller than the original. I didn’t steal it from anyone.”

“It is unimportant,” she said. “I am not going to bring you to Vanko.”

“Yeah, why not?” Tony asked. “You think I’m gonna pay you more?”

“I think you are in care of _Soldat_ ,” she said. “This I did not know. But you are precious to him. I have, in my ledger, mark for him. He is owed. I will repay my debt. He and I will be even.”

_Bucky_. Tony closed his eyes against a surge of pain. Could he possibly have gotten off the airship in time? Survived in the ocean? Was it even possible that Tony would ever see him again? Tears ached behind his eyelashes but he refused to let them loose.

“So?”

“Port Nix,” she told him. “We are not far, Ilheu de Praia, I think. Small island, territory of Portugal. There will be boat, we can hire.”

“With what money?” Tony burst. “We’ve got nothing, we fell out of the damn sky.”

“You are Tony Stark,” she said. “You have money. We will be fine.”

Tony chewed the last of his hardtack. Hardly the meal of a wealthy industrial baron. “Yeah. I’m Tony Stark. Who are _you_?”

“I am called many names,” she said. “Few belong to me. You may call me Natasha, if it pleases you.”

“Great, Gingersnap, just great. I feel so much more at ease.”

“You prefer I lie? Say my name is Yelena, or Natalia, or--”

“You’re lying with every word you say, even when you’re telling truth,” Tony told her. “Lose the accent, sweetheart. The poor slavic waif doesn’t look good on you.”

Natasha raised her eyebrows at him, then lifted her cup in a silent toast. “It’s been a while, really,” she said, sounding much more western European. “I can move around London or New York a lot easier if I don’t sound quite so tzarist.”

“I wonder why you bother,” Tony said. “Most men aren’t listening to you talk, anyway.”

She didn’t answer that. She didn’t speak to him for the rest of the night.

Tony supposed he deserved that.

***

They managed to get passage over to the mainland -- Ilheu de Praia was unoccupied except for the enormous flocks of terns, but fisherman put into the cove a few times -- without even revealing who they were. Apparently boatmen all over the area had been promised a bounty for bringing in any survivors from the airship disaster.

When the fisherman, nodding and speaking rapidly in Portuguese, which Tony didn’t understand and spoke even less, brought them to the shore, they were shuffled in with the rest of the flotsam. Tony was torn between being relieved that so many people made it off the ship, and horrified by the number of people who were crying, searching for loved ones who may or may not have made it safe.

From the overcrowded clusters of shipwreck victims, Tony found himself given unexpected sympathy and solace. A nurse checked his injuries, gave him some headache powder and banaged a gash on his arm he hadn’t even realized he had. Tony didn’t catch the name of where they’d put in, but he realized that if Natasha wanted to kidnap or kill him, it would have been very easy to escape her. There were dozens of port authority guards around, hospital and relief workers. He could have given her the slip, and for a long moment, he considered it.

She must have known that, as well. She didn’t drag or insist, or even try to talk him into it. Tony got a package of loose-fitting, but dry clothes from one of the relief workers, food, and managed to speak quietly to one French woman, who promised to telegraph Rhodey for him. Natasha waited until he made up his mind, putting himself in her hands.

He’d done stupider things, although he couldn’t put his finger on quite exactly when.

Natasha pulled Tony along, down the side streets of the port city until they were in an alley. She ducked into a shop, and then stood at the door, watching through the crack as if to see if they were being followed, which was absurd. The city was teeming with refugees and rescue workers, there was no way that two more people had stood out. But maybe it wasn’t mere paranoia. Bucky had known she was around, from a quick reconnoiter around the airship, hadn’t he? And he’d been proven right.

“Are we safe?” Tony asked, when she finally stepped away from the door.

“Don’t be stupid,” Natasha said. “Nowhere is safe. Only a child thinks that living has anything to do with safety. But we were not followed, unless they are better than I am. And, honestly, very few are better than I am. We will speak with one of them, now. Clint!” She raised her voice, bellowing across the tiny shop.

Tony hadn’t even noticed what kind of store they were in. After a long, searching look, he still wasn’t sure.

There were an assortment of weapons in one case, daggers and swords, various clockwork projectiles, an entire velvet cushion covered with those star-shaped knives that were popular with those who had read too many novels. But also a cabinet full of curios, a table that showcased a dozen music boxes. Rings and necklaces and bracelets and cufflinks.

The whole shop smelled of dust and coffee and tomato sauce.

The man -- Clint, perhaps -- was wearing an ugly purple shirt and had a shock of blond hair that stood straight up from his head. He had bandages tied around his head and another on his forearm, and several bits of sticking plaster holding various cuts closed. His nose sported one, along with two on his cheek, his fingers were practically mummified with the stuff. He raised a hand to one ear; the fingers bore a small disc that vibrated when Natasha talked. A hearing cone of some sort, Tony guessed.

He was already thinking of ways to improve the device.

“Aw, Nat,” the man said. “Did you have to come today? It’s a bad day, I just want to go back to bed.”

“I do not require anything from you,” she told him. “I need your pedal-rotor.”

“You gonna bring it back?”

“Probably not,” Natasha said, and she was smiling. Strange how much nicer she looked when she was smiling. “But I’ll try not to wreck it, this time.”

“I don’t believe you,” Clint said, but he was already digging out a key.

“You know, I keep saying that to her, too, but we both keep doing what she says. Do you suppose it’s some sort of compulsion in her voice?” Tony asked.

“He’s not very smart, is he?” Clint asked Natasha, jerking a thumb at Tony.

“It’s possible he improves on longer acquaintance,” Natasha said.

“Don’t count on it, cupcake,” Tony said.

***

“You’re going to pilot _this_?” Tony demanded. “You’re braver than I thought.”

“And you’re going to ride with me, so think about what that says about you.”

“Oh, no, no, I don’t think so,” Tony said.

“Have it your way, but it’ll take you weeks to get to Port Nix, if you can even find it,” Natasha said. “It’s not what you’d call well mapped.”

“Do you want her?” Tony asked Clint. “Because really, I think she’s going to get me killed.”

Clint waved him off negligently. “I’ve known Nat for years,” he said. “She gets me almost killed at least once a season. It’s no big deal.”

“You--”

“Get in the basket, Stark,” Natasha told him.

On the plus side, the pedal part of the rotor-craft was attached to an intricate and powerful wind-up. On the negative side, Natasha set him to the first hour of pedalling. Tony was soaked in sweat and thirsty as hell by the time she told him to kip off for a bit. He collapsed in the bottom of the two person basket, panting for breath.

“What is even the matter with you?” Tony demanded. “I have a heart condition.”

“Yes, I know,” Natasha said. “But the first wind is the easiest. It will get harder, as we go.” She extended a spyglass, surveying the ocean’s surface, the clouds in front of them, probably mapping their way to the non-existent archipelago where they hoped to meet Bucky.

If he was even still alive.

And suddenly Tony was wishing for the work of pedalling again. At least when he was straining his body, his brain wasn’t going over everything that he could have possibly done differently that would have had Bucky at his side instead of Little Miss Spy.

He dug through the rucksack of supplies that Natasha had taken from Clint’s shop until he found a moleskin journal wrapped in waxed leather, and a stub of a pencil. Curling up against the edge of the basket, he started sketching out preliminary plans for an improved hearing cone. It was the least he could do, complaints aside, for Clint letting them use his flying machine.

Even if it was tiny and rickety and terrifying and a pain in the ass to operate.

“Stark!”

Some hours had passed, Tony was lost in an engineering fugue, when Natasha kicked him in the thigh.

“Time to pedal again?” Tony got to his feet with a sigh.

“No,” she said, shoving the spyglass at him. “I want you to look, there--”

She pointed off to the western side of the basket -- it probably had some fancy nautical or aerial term, given that they were airborne, but Tony was happy with words like left and right, east and west. Things that made sense to a man to whom flying was still an idle dream.

Tony lifted the glass and scanned. Ocean and more ocean, sky and a flock of birds winging it across the sky. “What am I--”

Oh.

He focused, practically leaning out of the basket and only vaguely aware of Natasha grabbing hold of his belt to keep him inside.

A huge ship -- no, not a ship, but a submersible -- was surfaced. The brass and silver siding glinted in the evening sky, reflecting red against the water like a bloodstain.

He twisted the spyglass, looked with both eyes, as if that would help anything, then peered back through the glass.

“Why are we interested in the German submersible?”

“Look at the conning tower,” Natasha suggested.

Tony traced the lines of the deck, the multitude of gun ports, all sealed, thank Christ, and then up the tower. There was a little rail that went around the entrance, like their own basket, made of woven iron and steel.

“They’re flying the Hydra flag,” Tony said. “That’s not even good, wait, what--”

The flag -- which was not a flag at all -- more like a painting on the side of the tower, made from a stencil, for a boat that was meant to be underwater most of the time, was of the multi-armed monster that made up Hydra, the German science branch. Someone had daubed a new symbol over it in was probably, hopefully, paint.

A red star.

_Bucky._

_Maybe_. It was a star, and the star was symbolic of many countries and groups, but Tony couldn’t help the hope that rose in his throat and threatened to choke him.

What were the odds that someone would paint that symbol over a Hydra sigil?

“You think it’s him?” Funny, how calm Tony’s voice was, when he could practically feel his heart working overtime.

“I think we can land on the deck and see,” Natasha said.

They were barely touching down when the conning tower hatch opened and a tiny person peeked her head out. She was holding a flare gun, pointed directly at them. “Who goes there?” the child yelled.

“Natasha and Tony,” Natasha yelled back, her voice straining against the winds.

The girl closed the hatch and disappeared. A few moments later, the hatch opened again, and Bucky climbed out, left arm hanging useless at his side.

Bucky didn’t bother to take the safe way down, leaping the thirty feet from the top of the conning tower to the deck, and then Tony was in his arms, face against Bucky’s chest, feeling the heat of Bucky’s breath in his hair.

“Oh, thank God,” Bucky was saying, and Tony couldn’t say a word, too overjoyed and relieved.

Too overwhelmed to move, too moved to speak, Tony just clung to his lover with both hands.  



	11. The Paramountcy of Collaboration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might have noticed, I added a chapter total this week, because I have FINALLY outlined the rest of this story, so there's that...
> 
> It'll still be posting every other week, tho. I'm also working on 3 different bingo cards right now, plus some other projects, so... I'm still writing this very close to the wire. Even if I get ahead at this point, I'll probably keep it on that schedule.

“You’re weak, Soldier,” Rumlow bellowed from his holding cell in the brig. “Pathetic. Hydra will find you, you can’t hide. You can’t run. Cut off one head--”

Tony slammed the hatch between the brig and the upper decks, cutting off the sound.  

At least the _HCS Dauntless_ had a brig, and they hadn’t had to convert a store room. Bucky’d actually considered marooning their prisoners, or even tossing them overboard, but he would admit that he wouldn’t feel safe unless he knew exactly where Rumlow was, which either meant cold bloodedly putting a bullet in the back of his head, or turning him over to some sort of official.

Bucky wasn’t too keen on that plan, either. Sure, being a member of Hydra was considered a war crime… which meant Bucky, too, was a criminal. And Nat. There wasn’t a lot of mercy for deserters.

Which meant they were just stuck, for the time being, with Rumlow screaming insults and threats every time someone went down to feed the prisoners. They had a half dozen, but Rumlow was the only one who was really vocal. The rest of them were shocked that the Winter Soldier hadn’t killed them all, and were trying really hard to avoid drawing attention to themselves in case the Asset changed his mind.

“<You know we have to kill them,>” Natasha said, eyeing the door.

“I don’t do that anymore,” Bucky told her, refusing to follow her into Russian, refusing to acknowledge that he was once responsible for the slaughter of innocents, and so why should the fate of a few soldiers and spies concern him.

“You could just tell me you want to talk privately,” Tony said. He was back on the floor, digging through a tangle of copper wires and plates, half in and half out of the device. “I won’t even listen in.”

“<Liar,>” Natasha said. “<James, you must listen to me.>”

“No,” Bucky said. “I hear you, but no. Look, if it makes you feel better, go interograte Rumlow. We could use a heads up, something.”

“Are we playing good-cop, bad-cop? If we are,” Natasha said, “you know I’m always bad.”

“I know.”

Natasha nodded, got to her feet and headed into the brig. There was a hollow boom as she closed the door behind her.

Bucky groaned and put his face in his hands.

“Honey?”

“I have either sentenced those men to death, or worse.”

“There are a lot of things worse than death,” Tony agreed. “One might make the argument that being forced to be Hydra against your will is a fate worse than death, and this is just--” Tony threw his hands up, which looked hilarious, since he was still half inside the communication device.

“Payback?” Bucky suggested. “I… like it’s nothing personal? It feels personal.” And it wasn’t who he wanted to be. Killing in battle, that was one thing. Executing prisoners? That just made him feel dirty. His hands were already dirty, soaked with blood. He drowned in it, some night, in his dreams. Not killing Rumlow wouldn’t stop the dreams, nothing could. But Bucky didn’t have to keep performing his nightmares in the real world. That certainly wouldn’t make things better. And if, in some way, it did, wasn’t that _worse_? To lose the little bits of his humanity that he’d recovered?

“Hey,” Tony said, crawling out from the contraption. “You okay?”

“I just… I don’t never want to do that again,” Bucky said. He stared down at his mechanical hand. Tony had charged it up for him again, and Tony didn’t ask for much from Bucky, for all that he’d been giving, freely. Would Bucky become (again) a murderer for Tony’s sake? “I can fight, I’m a soldier, but…”

“Hey, hey,” Tony said, putting one hand against Bucky’s jaw. “You don’t have to, honey. We’ll… find something to do with them, and if they break out, we can just put them back.”

“Feels like, if that happens, it’ll be my fault, f’r not puttin’ ‘em down like the dogs they are.”

“What they do, baby, that’s on them,” Tony said. “And what they made you do, that’s on them, too. All you can do is make better choices. So you can sleep at night.”

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed. Shame painted his cheeks, he should have known Tony wouldn’t ask it of him, should have known that Tony was a better person. “I’ll do whatever I need to, to protect you, but--”

“I got you, first,” Tony said. “Your soul is just as important. I hope you know that.”

Tony hopped up onto the console, pulling Bucky into the comforting vee of his thighs, one arm going around Bucky’s neck, the other resting on Bucky’s hip. Reassuring. Grounding. Bucky gave into fear and weakness, leaned against Tony and let Tony comfort him.

Taking over the Dauntless had been both harder and easier than he expected. The girl, Kobik, had actually acted as a diversion, a thing that Bucky would never forgive himself for letting her do, even if she’d come up with the idea on her own and acted before Bucky could stop her without giving the whole game away.

She was going to grow up to be a fighter, that one.

Bucky had tucked her in, one of the Officer’s bunks had a fair sized bed, close enough to the floor that she could get in and out. He’d left her with a hammer and instructions to smack it against the hull if she needed anything, but otherwise, he wanted her to sleep herself out.

“What are you doin’ in there?” Bucky asked, seeking a distraction from his own thoughts, instead of reliving those terrible moments when he thought the girl was going to get herself killed. She hadn’t, and she was faster than anyone could have expected. But Bucky had woken three times for dreams when he wasn’t quick enough on the uptake, of holding her broken and bloody body, screaming for justice and getting none.

“Tapping into their communications records,” Tony said. “They’re on a different system than some of the others I’ve looked at, but I can probably rig up a Diskret and crack it, given some time. I was hoping they might have a built-in. Have you searched the ship?”

“I ain’t got a clue what you’re looking for,” Bucky said. “But we can search?”

“Did anyone throw anything overboard while you were attacking? It’s protocol on most Navy vessels, if they’re at risk of being boarded, to dispose of the wheels as soon as possible. You can always get a new code breaker, but if the enemy gets their hands on it, everyone’s gotta get a new one. That’s dangerous.”

“What’s it look like?”

“God only knows,” Tony said. “They’re all different, although mostly they look--” he scrambled around for a piece of paper and drew a quick sketch, a pair of wheels and a crank on a spindle. “I can manually cipher, if I have to, but it’s hard. Especially since Hydra’s main language isn’t English, and my Russian’s a bit rusty.”

“Mine’s not,” Natasha said, coming back into the room. “I will help to look. The prisoners believe right now, they are too valuable to kill. That will change if we can crack their messages.”

“They’re not valuable at all,” Bucky muttered. “Not even enough to kill.”

“There is much red in my ledger,” Natasha said. “More will make little difference.”

“Letting you kill them, just to keep my hands clean, doesn’t actually cut it,” Bucky told her.

“Right, can we bicker about this later, and look for the Diskret first?” Tony said, letting Bucky step away from him. He gave Bucky a reassuring pat on the back. “And food, food might be good. What about coffee? Do these heathens drink coffee?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow. “Do you have some patriotic loyalty, or will black tea do well enough?”

Tony made a face. “If it’s tea or nothing… I’ll have to sit down and think it over.”

***

Turned out there was both coffee and tea, and some fancy glassware with silver handles to hold it. As well as caviar and cigars and brandy. All the little luxuries, Tony thought with a sneer. He could see, however, how some of the less fortunate might be tempted into being footsoldiers for Hydra. One head and all that, but people needed to eat.

Bucky jerked Tony back away from the portable stove. “Wait.”

“You have a good eye,” Natasha said, as Bucky went to one knee and unhooked the explosives that were tied into the portable’s igniter. “Should I get one of the prisoners to check for the rest of the traps?”

Tony watched as Bucky finished with the trap; it wasn’t complicated, but when something went boom, it didn’t really need to be, did it? It was a jury rig job, probably hastily put in place when Bucky had boarded the ship. “We’re not killing them,” Tony said. “See which one wants to eat first, he can help us.”

“Not Rumlow,” Bucky cautioned. “That one has too much hatred in his heart. He will kill himself, just for the chance to kill any of us.”

“Nothing more fun than a fantic,” Tony piped up. “What are you planning to do with the explosives?”

“You want them?”

“Hell, yes,” Tony said. “Gimme.”

“You want the strangest gifts, babydoll.”

Tony cackled, gleeful. “Can I make coffee now, or is the kitchen at risk of exploding?”

Natasha had one of the Hydra guys on a literal leash, his hands bound in front of him and a rope around his neck. “Make this one drink first,” she said. “He will eat first, and if it is poisoned, no loss.”

Personally, Tony didn’t think that poison worked that way; the Hydra goon wasn’t likely to take a sip and keel over. But who knew, if the guy was part of the sabotage crew, he wouldn’t likely feed himself poison, even if he knew where the antidote was. If there was one.

Tony was going to worry himself into a tizzy at this rate.

“How long have you been on this boat?”

“Few weeks,” the Hydra goon answered, not even looking like he was planning to resist, although that might have been knowing that he was on the other end of a Black Widow’s leash.

“Right,” Tony said. “Where’s the food stores?” Hydra might have poisoned the cupboard, but Bucky hadn’t given them a lot of time; destroying the long term stores was probably way down on their priority list, especially given the size of the crew.

By the time they’d found food that Hydra Bob (probably not his real name, but Tony had to call him something, right) was pretty sure was safe -- and he ate some of it -- Bucky’s little silver shadow had found him.

It probably wasn’t safe to have a kid tagging along behind them while they explored the submersible for more traps and tricks, for poisoned food, and explosives, and the whole while, Natasha was threatening the man in a cheery tone with peeling his skin off, or stabbing him with dozens of tiny knives.

Yeah, the kid was going to come out of this adventure with some scars, and Tony knew all about that, didn’t he? On the other hand, if they managed to blow themselves up, it was probably better that she died with them. God only knew what Hydra would do, if they found a child alone on one of their ships. Not even to mention that the allies would probably blow the ship out of the water without even asking questions.

Which reminded him, “we should find some paint. It’ll be better to completely cover up that Hydra marker.”

“Not if we want to use it to infiltrate,” Natasha said.

“Oh, no,” Tony said. “Under no circumstances am I pretending to be Hydra.”

“Then you will die, trying to get to the man you seek,” Natasha said with a shrug. “Unless you have a better idea.”

***

“This is a bad plan,” Bucky said.

“No, come on, it’s a great plan,” Tony cajoled, his voice taking on a pleading, wheedling tone. “We’ve got legit Hydra agents here.”

“Hydra Bob is not going to help us,” Bucky said. They’d all gotten stuck calling the poor guy Hydra Bob, which turned out to be hilarious, since his name _was_ Robert.

“He’s absolutely gonna help us,” Tony said. “Have you talked to the guy?”

“No?” Because why would Bucky talk to anyone from Hydra? Not if he could manage to avoid it. Bad enough he was already tempted to kill them all, just for threatening his Tony.

“Hydra Bob’s not a fanatic,” Tony explained. “He kinda got into the job because his wife was nagging about his inability to hold steady employment. Not that he should be blamed for that, the local economy is in decline.”

“How do you become evil murdering scum by accident?” Bucky demanded. How was that even fair, or possible? He’d gotten hijacked, had his brain invaded, had a clockwork arm attached to him against his will, without his permission, and this idiot just fell into it? He almost deserved death just for being a complete idiot.

“I, uh, haven’t actually murdered anyone,” Bob piped up. He still had the collar on, and Natasha had found some way to rig it to a voltic pile, so she could shock him whenever she wanted. Bucky was a little disturbed by how often she found it necessary, but despite that, Bob still seemed relatively good natured about the whole thing.

Which was also disturbing.

“You’re Hydra,” Bucky protested.

“I’m a _minion_ ,” Bob responded. “Do you know what minion training is? Me either, because I haven’t had any. Mostly, we just yell slogans and find someplace to hide.”

“You are useless,” Natasha said, and she tapped the collar, which caused Bob to stiffen painfully.

Bucky winced. He could smell the _aether_ coming off the device, could hear the crackling of it through the man’s flesh. Just because Bob was Hydra, torture was not a thing that Bucky could stomach. He’d had enough of it, himself. It hadn’t made him hard, and maybe that was the difference between them. “Stop that.”

“Rumlow is right about you,” Natasha said. “You are not Hydra.”

“Well, there’s a fucking relief,” Bucky said.

“So, look, we get Nat and Hydra Bob to bring us in as prisoners. It’s a classic,” Tony said. “And they won’t suspect, because who the hell is going to doubt a Black Widow with a goon?”

“ _Minion_ ,” Bob said, and then flinched, backing away from Natasha.

“We don’t even need to get an ill-fitting uniform. It’s perfect.”

“You an’ I need to have words about what you consider perfection,” Bucky retorted.

“It’ll work,” Natasha said. “Or, if it does not, nothing else would. This gives you the best chance, to get closest to where you need to be. We can even give them information on where their other members are being incarcerated. It would give weight to the lie, and you know they will be rescued, or sacrificed as the higher ups decree. No blood will be on our hands that is not honorably earned.” There was a lot of sarcasm loaded into Nat’s statements, which did actually comfort him. She thought he was being ridiculous, the bitter tone telling him how disappointed she was. And yet, Bucky didn’t want a Black Widow to be proud of him.

“I’m gonna regret this,” Bucky said.

“Save the ‘I told you so’ for later, gorgeous,” Tony said. “Let’s take a look at the map and see where the best port is, to put ashore.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> say hi to one of my other favorite characters.


	12. An Accretion of Inclination

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is pretty much just the smuts, after they say good night to Kobik, they're going straight to bed, do not pass go, do not collect $200

The air was strange, and heavy, once they were underway. Hydra Bob knew the most about driving the boat, and between Natasha and Bucky, they knew enough to keep an eye on them. It didn’t take Tony long to figure out how the boat worked, although in his inspection of the engine compartment, he became somewhat surprised that it _did_ work.

In the interests of living long enough to get to port, Tony ransacked the various tinkerer’s lockers for tools, picked out a set based on a combination of efficiency, care for the tool itself, and the way each item fit in his hand. You could always tell a good tinkerer by his tools, Dad had always said. Which led Tony to wonder if Hydra had any good tinkerers at all.

Well, they must have, must they not, since someone had made Bucky’s arm. Whoever they were, however, they weren’t on this _particular_ boat, were they?

The inner and outer hull designs were highly unstable; the floodable compartments should have surrounded the entire inner hull for the best hydrostatic pressure, but they weren’t. Instead, there were main ballast tanks forward and aft, but it limited the depths to which the boat could submerge.

That being said, without several months in a dry dock, there wasn’t anything Tony could do about terrible design flaws. What he needed to do now was make certain that this -- slightly advanced canoe -- stayed functional. “Honestly, it’s more like a biscuit than a submarine,” Tony muttered.

“How’s that?” Bucky asked, coming into the engine compartment while Tony was hips deep in the propulsion system, and startling him badly enough that Bucky had to grab his belt to keep him from falling in.

“This boat barely has the structural integrity to withstand a shallow dunk in a cup of coffee,” Tony said, wiping his forehead, and probably just smearing grease around. “Like a cookie. Every time we go under, we risk leaving crumbs behind. If we bottom this boat, we’re never getting out of it.”

“We’re keeping it just below the surface, Tony,” Bucky said. “Wouldn’t want to _go down_ too far.” Bucky waggled his eyebrows suggestively and ran a hand down the front of Tony’s shirt, drifting lower until he was pressing his fingers over the front panel of Tony’s trousers. Despite everything, Tony couldn’t help but lean into that pressure.

“This leaky can is going to serve as our coffin, and you’re making suggestive innuendos?”

Bucky’s hand kept moving, fingertips down, palm up until Tony was rocking helplessly into it, chewing the inside of his mouth to keep from moaning wantonly.

“Nah, doll,” Bucky said, “I ain’t makin’ _suggestions_ here. Flat out want t’ take you to bed an’ treat you good.” He drew in closer, tipped his head and nuzzled at Tony’s ear.

Tony glanced around the compartment. Despite the engineering issues and the lack of proper maintenance, and the way the boat creaked and moaned like the dead risen, there was nothing currently leaking (well, a few things were, but it wasn’t urgent) or smoking, or out and out failing. And Hydra, after all, had been in this boat for quite a while, unscathed.

“Or,” Bucky said, lifting Tony up until he was seated on one of the casings for the propellor workings, “if you want t’ keep an eye on things, I could jus’ strip you right here, and--”

“No, I think bed sounds a lot better,” Tony murmured, even though Bucky was already wedged between Tony’s thighs and they were rubbing against each other. “Take me to bed. Or just _take me_ already.” Bucky was doing something obscene with his hips, rolling them in such a way that Tony was whimpering softly. His legs wrapped around Bucky’s waist, squeezing, until there was nothing between them but clothes and heat. Tony couldn’t get close enough, wanted that skin on skin, and god only knew where the others were.

Making love among the engine parts was a fantasy that could -- and probably would -- be interrupted. The last thing Tony needed was to be scarred for life by having Kobik walk in and ask what they were doing. Or worse, Natasha walk in and knowing.

“Bed,” Tony insisted.

Besides, some of them were old men, and he didn’t need to put that sort of strain on his back right before they went and did something of truly epic stupidity. He’d need all his strength for that.

Bucky lifted Tony until he was practically sitting on the clockwork arm. “Bed,” Bucky agreed.

They did, indeed, pass Kobik in the tubes.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Putting Tony t’ bed,” Bucky told her. “An’ then I’m gonna lay on him and make sure he stays there until he gets some sleep.”

The girl nodded a little dubiously, like she didn’t quite believe them, and Tony had to hide his face against Bucky’s chest to keep from blushing. Well, he was pretty sure he was blushing anyway -- strange how his normal shamelessness could be subverted by an innocent question.

“Okay,” she decided. “You should stop bein’ bad, Mr. Tony.”

Bucky made an aborted choking sound under him, then said, “Go see Miss Nat, if you’re hungry, she’ll help you in the galley.”

“Okay,” Kobik said. “G’nite Mr. Tony.”

“Goodnight,” Tony croaked. He kept his face pressed against Bucky’s chest, stifling giggles and groans. “Get me out of here.”

Bucky nuzzled at the top of his head. “I gotcha, babydoll,” he said. He had to put Tony down in order to operate the aft hatchway, but once they were through and closed it, Tony felt better. It was unlikely that Kobik would follow them through -- her quarters were forward, and the prisoners were all the way aft. She avoided them scrupulously.

“Here we are,” Bucky told him.

The room he nudged them into wasn’t particularly fancy -- officers quarters were forward -- but it was private and cozy, and oddly clean. Medical, Tony would guess, but before he had a change to explore that thought, Bucky had pressed him down into white linens and was kissing him as if his life depended on it.

“When did I start to need you so much?” Bucky marveled, sliding his fingers into Tony’s hair, until he was cradling the back of Tony’s skull. He spread himself over Tony’s body like a blanket.

Something warm and lovely spread in Tony’s chest, more than the arc-reactor, a feeling, more than just need or sexual desire, but, something else entirely. It started near his heart, and then swept out with his blood, until every part of him was warm, content.

Even if Bucky did no more than kiss him, Tony would be happy to be kissed. Petted and adored and … loved. By such a man.

Bucky kissed him again, lips hungry, nibbling at Tony’s mouth, licking into it. Every inch of Tony’s skin tingled, craving the press of flesh on flesh until he was squirming eagerly. He tugged at buttons, pushed at cloth, until, with some small, but necessary effort, they were both naked.

Bucky looked at Tony, an old mechanic, who’d spent the better part of his life in debauchery and drunkeness, who’d only at the very last possible moment had a change of heart and tried to become something -- someone -- worthwhile, like he was a priceless treasure. Like Tony was beautiful. And Tony wanted it. He wanted to be beautiful in Bucky’s eyes, because they were the only eyes that were ever going to matter again.

And all of that would have been unbearably sappy and overly sweet, except that Bucky had moved on from staring at Tony with wide-eyed wonder to licking and kissing at every inch of exposed skin. Tony’s hands slipped down the smooth muscle of Bucky’s back, feeling the heat and strength of him.

Bucky groaned when Tony touched him, he sighed when Tony’s fingers skimmed along the scarring around Bucky’s shoulders. The skin twitched under Tony’s hand, encouraging more touching, more sampling. Tony was a scientist, after all. The best results were the ones that could be repeated.

“You’re perfect,” Bucky whispered in Tony’s ear, his lips blazing a trail to the underside of Tony’s chin, mouth teasing at the prickle of Tony’s beard. He claimed Tony’s mouth again with greater fervor and his hand went down to cup Tony’s ass, squeezing and kneading and pressing Tony up against him. “My god, I want you. Want t’ sink into you an’ never let you go again.”

“Then get a move on, soldier,” Tony complained, rocking his hips up against Bucky’s thigh. Patience was never one of Tony’s strong points; he was always chasing more, better, now. The more he got _now_ , he always reasoned, the more time he had more for _later_.

“First things first,” Bucky said, and then that hot weight was taken away and Tony reached out to grab for it, instinctively. But he was back, moments later, with a tiny brown bottle of oil. “Didja think I was leavin’?”

Tony shrugged. Sooner or later, everyone did, but this was not the time for it. Instead, he pulled Bucky down and kissed him again. Tony was shivering, with need, with the chill in the air, with the sudden fear that Bucky was someone he could _lose_. “Not if I can help it,” Tony said, both to Bucky’s question and to the stir of thoughts in his head. “Going to keep you with me.”

Bucky softened under him, his eyes going warm and almost misty. “Well, thank god for that,” Bucky said.

Tony spread his thighs, inviting, and Bucky took the invitation in the manner it was clearly meant, started to prep and tease at the opening of Tony’s body. He went about it with deliberate slowness, bringing each response out of Tony’s body with a quiver of delight.

God, Tony needed him. It was humbling, how much Tony needed him.

He was hard, hot, desperately wracked with desire, so much that it was a wonder he could still see, that he could remain under Bucky, hands clenched in the linens to hold himself down, to let Bucky tease and torture him into near insanity. He couldn’t say it, didn’t know how, but he wanted Bucky to love this, to need this, as much as anything else, to lay under Bucky and for Bucky to know that Tony was his. That he’d given everything he had to one remarkable man.

And then he couldn’t have said it, even if he knew the words, because Bucky was kissing him again, mouth hot and hungry on Tony’s, and the mechanical hand was pushing Tony’s thighs wide, and--

God, Bucky was huge, and Tony hissed in a breath as Bucky pushed into him. It ached in the best way, burned and stretched and-- “Oh, god!”

Bucky’s kiss was as wild and heated as his entry was slow and deliberate. Each flick of his tongue distracted Tony from the pressure. Each nibble of his teeth sent shivers racing down Tony’s spine. Tony burned, both inside and out, and then… his body accepted the invasion and Tony could breathe again, relaxed, and then he didn’t want to relax. Everything in him was driven to movement, rocking his hips to meet Bucky’s strokes.

His hands were restless, touching everything he could reach. Bucky’s back, his hip, his ribs, up to pinch and play with those brown, flat nipples. There was no way to stop the compulsion to move until they were in harmony, joyous and free and perfectly synced. Like a clockwork, every twist of Bucky’s hips ratcheted up Tony’s desire until it was too big for either of them.

Tony got a hand between them, worked his cock desperately as Bucky hammered into him. Bucky’s breath was hot, coming in short gasps, and then he pulled Tony closer, arms under his back until they were aligned, skin to skin.

Tony made a sound, some noise, he didn’t know what, and it drove Bucky to greater heights. Tony could feel every single jolt and thrust, lighting him up from inside until he was nothing more than a bundle of stimulated nerves, until--

“Bucky!”

He wanted to watch as Bucky came unravelled, see the sweetness pass over Bucky’s mobile, beautiful features, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t keep his eyes open as pleasure so great as to be close to agony, swept him away. Everything was molten, trembling sensation. Bucky buried his face in the crook of Tony’s neck and cried Tony’s name like a prayer.

For a full minute after, Tony could only lay there, with Bucky on top of him as they chased after their breath. Waiting for the rush to settle down into mere tingles of bliss. Bucky rolled off with a groan, and Tony’s mouth twitched in involuntary reaction as he was left empty, thighs sticky with Bucky’s spill.

Tony had dozens of lovers in his past, nameless, barely remembered. He’d been touched and kissed, pleased and given out pleasure. Fucked ruthlessly, and leisurely, depending.

He had never before felt _loved_.


	13. A Disruptive Coloration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops. I got so wrapped up in my current project that I completely forgot to post this yesterday...

 

“We’re not leaving her,” Bucky said, staring at the church’s door. Kobik was hanging off his clockwork arm with both hands, eyes wide.

“Of course not, ,” Tony said. “That said, we’re also not taking a four year old into hostile territory. She can stay here, safe and sound, for a few days, and then we’ll take her home. And you know, if it doesn’t work out -- I’m probably a shit parent, and shouldn’t be allowed near any kids, aside from to sign autographs or something -- then Rhodey and Pepper can take her on.”

“You can’t give a kid to your friend like you’re deliverin’ a baby bunny on Easter,” Bucky protested.

“Sure I can, sugarplum,” Tony said. “Besides, we’re certainly not giving her up to someone called Baron _Zemo_ , I mean, what sort of name is that? Sounds like something my not-dearly, but certainly departed father would have come up with as a code name when he was drunk off his ass.”

“You absolutely should not father a child, Stark,” Natasha said, coming up on them from the other side and it was only that Bucky had years of training as a spy and assassin that he didn’t jump right out of his goddamn skin. “The mouth on you, alone--”

“Let’s not even get into what I can do with my mouth,” Tony said, “it’s very talent--”

“Shut up, Tony,” Bucky said. “Ow!” He glared at Natasha. “What was that?” He wiped frantically at his neck where something cool felt like it was trickling down his skin.

“Serum blocker,” she said. “It was very expensive. I will be billing you for my services. But it will last for three nights, and you will not be a drooling laudanum addict, if Hydra gets its hands on you.”

“You could have said so.”

Natasha didn’t seem to think that was worthy of a response. She merely gestured to the church in a come along, daylight is wasting gesture.

“I wanna go with you,” Kobik declared.

“Yeah, honey, I know,” Bucky said. He dropped down on one knee so he could look her in the eye. “But I’m coming back for you, I _promise_. What we’re about t’ do, that’s to keep all of us safe, an’ I don’t want you gettin’ hurt. This… well, Tony wouldn’t bring you someplace awful.” He glared at Tony as if to verify, and Tony made his showman’s _who, me?_ face. “This’ll be a good place to eat an’ sleep, and maybe get some schoolin’ in. You’ll work hard, yeah? Make me proud?”  

“Will they teach me to shoot a gun?”

Tony snorted.

“Probably not, honey,” Bucky said.

“ _Worthless_ ,” Kobik declared.

“Oh, yeah, Bucky, this is your kid, all right,” Tony said, giggling behind his hand.

“Let’s start with reading, writing, and basic maths, okay, kid?” Bucky asked. “Ya gotta learn math if you’re gonna be a sharpshooter.”

“I do?”

“Math is the language of the universe,” Tony said, almost dreamily, like a teenage girl talking about her crush. “You can describe everything from the birth of stars to the heat death of the universe in math. It’s beautiful. It’s art. You’ll love it.”

“Right, so,” Bucky filled in awkwardly. “You’re gonna be good for th’ nuns, and we’ll be back for ya just as soon as we can, okay, sweetheart?”

Kobik’s lip wobbled and her eyes filled up with tears. “I’m gonna be _lonely_! What if you don’t come back?”

Bucky stared at the little girl, helplessly. They might not come back, that much was true. And she was so young, to have already lost so much.

Natasha was already busy, her hands in her pouch. She pulled out a long string of leather. “Gimme your arm,” she told Bucky, and when he held out the right one, she smacked him. “The other arm, idiot.”

She pressed a panel in his bicep, popping out a secret compartment that he hadn’t even known was there.

“What are you--”

She liberated two cogs. “Emergency repair module,” she said, then strung the cogs onto the leather. “Bolt, Stark.”

Tony was a genius, so he didn’t even blink, pulling out a handful of spare parts from his pocket, including a tiny wrench for delicate work. She selected that, put the leather thong through the tiny hole at the end, and then added a ring from her own finger, one that could hold a poison dose or cyanide pill. Bucky hoped she’d cleaned it, first.

Hydra Bob shifted his feet a little, and then brought out a tiny ivory item, the size and shape of a quail egg. “From me, too,” he said.

“What is it?” Kobik stopped sniffling to look.

“It’s a sewing egg,” Hydra Bob told her, opening it up. Thimble, needle, bobbin, and a tiny pair of scissors. “What?” He glared at Bucky as if Bucky had said something. “Hydra doesn’t pay well enough for me to get someone to darn my socks for me. If I get a hole in my pants, I have to sew it up.”

Natasha took the egg and strung it on the leather and tied the whole thing around Kobik’s neck. “We will come back for our things,” she promised. “One of us will come back for you.”

Bucky wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of Hydra Bob (or Natasha, for that matter) coming back for Kobik. He would make extra sure not to die.

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Bucky said. “Cross my heart and everything.”

***

The problem with being semi-friends with a Black Widow was that there was never any way to know which thread of her web she was yanking on at any given time.

“This is the Winter Soldier, and that’s Tony Stark,” she said, as soon as they marched up to the Hydra fortress. “They’re in love with each other, so you’re best off separating them and using them against each other. If you don’t want to put them both down right away. Very dangerous, do not underestimate.”

There were a lot of guns suddenly pointed in their direction.

Tony opened his mouth to say something angry -- Bucky wasn’t even sure to who, since he was glaring at Natasha -- and some Hydra mook punched him in the face. Tony went down with a mouth full of blood and came up spitting and snarling.

Bucky didn’t bother with any of that; talking was not what was going to get them out of this. Whether this was all according to Natasha’s plan (whoever’s side she was on at any given time) or not, no one would believe it if he didn’t fight back.

And since he had license to break heads, he broke a few.

Including breaking Natasha’s arm while he was at it. It wa a greenstick fracture, Bucky heard it pop, and nothing that wearing a brace for a few weeks wouldn’t fix.

“Stop, or he dies,” someone said.

Bucky was going to throw up.

 _Zola_.

“I would prefer if you stop fighting,” Zola said. He was holding a shimmering, blue blade to Tony’s throat, his hand in Tony’s hair and pulling his head back painfully. “You are too valuable to waste. Stark’s brain, very useful. But we are working on a procedure that will allow a brain to be stored, in a differential engine. So, by all means, if you wish to carry on, I will cut his head off and we shall see if my new invention works.”

“I get paid no matter what you decide,” Natasha said.

“Of course, madam,” Zola said. “You do very good work and it has not gone unnoticed. Consider the amount doubled, for your efforts. If you should like to take our hospitality for a few days, I may have other work that interests you.”

“Impress me at dinner and we’ll see,” Natasha said. “Oh, and I’m keeping this--” she gestured with one hand at Hydra Bob. “At least for the time being. I’ll send him home when I’m done.”

Zola shrugged. “Of course. I’ll have someone show you to your room.” He shoved Tony at another pack of guards and Tony grunted. There was a smear of blood on Tony’s throat, dripping down his neck and spilling over onto his shirt. Not much, but enough.

Which was when he discovered that the Winter Soldier was still deep inside him, because the Soldier roared up to play.

There are three dead guards, Black Widow is sporting a rapidly blacking eye and a menacing scowl, Zola was slashed across the chest, tearing a huge hole in his ugly suit, but unfortunately nothing vital got hit, except his Hydra badge, and Tony was on the floor on his hands and knees, coughing like someone had punched him in the throat.

All of which the Winter Soldier had accomplished without ever getting his hands out of the fucking cuffs that Widow had used on him.

The remaining guards had him on hard leashes, animal-restraining devices that kept him at least four feet away from any of them, even if he was making them regret it.

Right up until someone hit him with an aether stick.

The charge shivered straight through his skin and his heart went erratic. He twitched, every muscle in his body seizing up.  

And once they started, Bucky knew from experience, it wasn’t going to end well.

The last thing Bucky saw before he passed out was Hydra Bob, staring at the floor and chewing his lip so hard it was bleeding -- Bucky wondered if the man had ever actually done any killing for Hydra at all. And Widow, watching the whole thing with cold, emotionless eyes.

Tony’s voice, ragged and thin, followed him into the darkness, begging for them to stop, just stop, stop hurting hi--

***

“Well, well, Sergeant Barnes.”

Zola’s voice greeted him as he roused. Not the world’s best wake-up call. Bucky would take a cup of dubious military surplus coffee and a scrap of Army beans before that.

He didn’t bother to look up.

The room was cold, and he wasn’t wearing clothes. It was a lot less fun than it had been the last time he’d woken up someone’s prisoner.

His hands were still chained behind his back with Natasha’s special cuffs. On his knees.

A collar around his throat, hooked to four steel tubes, pinning him in place.

The ice-room.

Bucky didn’t allow himself to shiver. That would come soon enough. He knew this room. He knew what this was.

“We did not expect to see you back, Soldier,” Zola said. “Especially not in such good condition. You’ve taken very good care of the Asset, which you were out of our control.”

_I will never be in your control again._

Bucky didn’t know how log that would last. He wasn’t sure about this plan at all. Widow’s mask was too good, he couldn’t tell if she was faking it, or if she really did not care. He had less than three days-- “How long was I out?”

“You are still very much our creature, Soldier,” Zola said. “A few hours. Nothing, for you. I’m afraid they did not, however, pass very quickly for your Stark.”

Bucky tightened his muscles, jerked at his bonds. He couldn’t help it. Tony, Tony, Tony was in trouble and it was all his fault, this was a bad plan, it was a stupid plan, he should never have agreed to this. If all the gods were very merciful, they would die here.

And if the gods were not?

Well, they wouldn’t die. Would they?

A few more twitches, and Bucky thought that there might be some structural weakness in the left side of the glass tank he’s in. Not that it mattered. He didn’t have a lot of time. And if Zola stayed at the controls, there would be no time. Nothing he could do except hope that Natasha came through with her part of the plan.

“You have grown attached,” Zola said, his mouth turning up in that ugly, interested little smile. “How amusing. Well, perhaps if he lives long enough, we may bring him in here, that you can listen to him scream. Or, perhaps, after--” After Bucky came out of the ice-room, Zola meant, desperate to do anything to stay out. His conditioning training. His breaking. His… _punishment_. “-- then you can introduce him to the finer points of agony.”

He tried to remind himself that Tony didn’t have much time left; the arc-reactor was already killing him, and there was no way that his heart could take much. He would be dead, and it would be a god-damn mercy before he could witness the ultimate betrayal.

Because Bucky knew damn well that he’d do it. He would. Nothing had ever broken him free when he was deep in Hydra’s clutches. He’d do anything they said.

Water poured out of the ceiling of the ice-room, splashing down on his head.

It was beyond cold, barely water. More like slush and ice than liquid.

He always promised himself he wouldn’t scream.

He wouldn’t beg.

He always broke that promise.

***

Tony let his head hang loose. His arms already ached, suspended over his head. It wasn’t about not breaking; it had never been about that. It was about endurance. How much could he take?

He didn’t know.

_Pretty sure you’re about to find out, genius._

They hadn’t taken him nearly far enough away. For a long while, everything was quiet, except his own labored breathing. They locked him in and walked away. Waiting was boring, but he figured that he could probably deal with a little boredom.

The anticipation was bad, though. What were they planning to do? How long would it take for Natasha to start her part of their plan.

How much pain would there be in the meanwhile?

They had to go carefully, Tony discovered. The ather sticks that they’d used on Bucky until he’d had a goddamn seizure or something, those would probably kill Tony outright. As soon as they’d stripped his shirt off, seen the arc-reactor, there’d been a frantic exchange of questions, of concerns. Someone left, and then then the rest of them had followed.

Consulting with the experts. Except how many experts could there be on radical surgical procedures? If they wanted him alive for anything, they’d have to go careful.

That was the plan, leastways.

The woman who came in, rolling a cart in front of her, was tall. Ridiculously so. Tony craned his neck to look up at her. She had long black hair with streaks of green, and eyes of the same color. She wore the stereotypical Hydra green, her dress adorned with the red patch, skull and multiple tentacles.

She could have been pretty. Might have been pretty once, except her face was slashed with scars along one side, the eyelid twisted up. She noticed him looking and raised a white, half-mask to her face where it clicked into place.

“Mr. Stark,” she said, practically purring. “It’s so good to finally meet you. I’ve long since been an admirer of yours.”

“Like a schoolgirl with a crush,” Tony said, because he really couldn’t stay quiet. It was against everything in his nature. “I’m flattered, but already spoken for. Better luck next time.”

“Your reputation on many things speaks loud, Mr. Stark,” she said. “Faithfulness is not among your admirable traits. But that’s all right. I’m well in the habit of breaking men of their delusions. Most men, I’m told, prefer the rack, to my little torments, but your weak heart. We must take precautions. So many things you can tell us, before your death.”

“That’s a waste.”

“I’m not a fool, Mr. Stark,” she said. She was mixing something together in a silver dish, pouring from a variety of vials and beakers. “The process which makes someone compliant would probably kill you. We can only break you, and eventually, all broken things become worthless. There’s only a small amount of time, to drain you of what you know, before you will say anything, just to keep it from hurting. By that time, your information can no longer be trusted.”

“This is the point where you’re supposed to offer me some incentive,” Tony pointed out. There was an acrid smell coming from the dish, along with a plume of smoke.

“Yes, well,” she said, coming forward with the dish and a small glass pipette, “first, in order to be truly persuasive, you must understand the penalty for non-compliance.”

She dripped something onto his skin. Something foul-smelling and runny. Three drops, no more, across the back of his hand.

Tony hitched in a quick breath. He’d never intended to try to be stoic. Holding it in didn’t make it hurt _less_.

The fluid dripped down his skin, and then--

Tony had been burned before. He was a tinkerer and a blacksmith. Of course he’d burned himself, innumerable times.

This went beyond fire, beyond heat.

Tony had never meant to be silent.

And he wasn’t.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand that happened.
> 
> sorry about the cliffhanger.


	14. The Solution of Gnomonics

The water lapped at his chin; if he didn’t keep his head all the way back, unable to see Zola at his controls, his throat exposed and vulnerable, the water hit the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t breathe.

The cold ached. He could have thought he’d go numb to it eventually, that he’d succumb to the extreme temperature, that he’d faint.

He never did.

It was so cold that it burned.

He didn’t know how long it had been. There was no way to keep time in that container. He couldn’t even count his breaths because panic overtook him, he would lose all track of it, struggling desperately, uselessly.

He hadn’t quite forgotten their mission, or what he was supposed to be doing, but it was getting close. Every minute, every splash of water. He couldn’t help but struggle, but struggling made it worse.

It exhausted him, so his head wanted to tip forward, but the water in his nose, on the inside of his mouth, stung at him. He couldn’t relax enough to just die, couldn’t he just die?

Every time he moved, the water sloshed, washing higher on his skin.

His hair was collecting a crust of ice, every time he moved his head, he could feel the scrim of ice cracking.

Zola would sometimes lower the levels; until the water was at his armpits. Enough that his head could sag down, that he could take full breaths, enough that he could go limp in his bonds. Enough that he would sob and beg.

Let me out, please, let me out.

Zola would ask questions.

Bucky always answered them.

Anything. He would have said anything to make it stop.

Something in him resisted. Maybe Zola hadn’t asked the right questions, maybe Zola didn’t even know what the right questions were. But Bucky hadn’t said; he hadn’t confessed that Natasha was there to help them. So she said, but Bucky had seen no signs of her since they’d come. Maybe she was helping Tony. Maybe she was trapped herself.

Maybe Hydra Bob had betrayed them all.

Maybe Natasha had betrayed them all.

Maybe Tony--

Bucky’s brain seized at that thought; every muscle in his body tightened and strained.

Tony, subjected to this?

_Never._

Somewhere in him, Bucky finds the ability to be strong.

To forge himself, not in fire, but in ice. He has his precious facts, he has his truths, and they will not be stolen from him.

Not this time.

Not ever again.

Zola was speaking, his raspy little toad’s voice too loud from the speakers. “You know she told us everything,” he was saying. “How you attempted to convert and bribe her. She is loyal, she knows what she was meant for. She does not need to be reminded.”

Bribery? Bucky kept his head down, the water would be pouring in soon enough and it stung his eyes and his nose. His breath was painful, each exhalation a burning agony. His lungs were tight. Another guzzle and water dumped over his head, even colder. A slurry of ice and freezing water.

He gasped, panted.

His muscles tensed again and he leaned forward as far as he could. A creak, a snap, barely audible against the splashing water, the taunting words.

The water stopped. Bucky leaned back, pushing as much of his weight against the collar.

“You think I want something from you,” Zola said. “That if you give it to me, I will stop this. Maybe I will. Or maybe I will see just how much you can endure before you die. We could resurrect you again; you remember that, don’t you--”

Of course he did.

Bucky leaned left. Another pop. Something was giving way, and maybe it was him.

But maybe it wasn’t.

“You’re useless to us, a machine that just keeps breaking,” Zola said. “Eventually, you’re no longer worth the cost of investment. Now, your Stark, he might be a thing of value.”

“Never,” Bucky managed to say. He raised his head, stared at Zola. “You’ll never have him.” Leaned to the right.

A shadow moved behind Zola, a brief flicker.

Bucky lurched, pushing, straining to get to his feet, surging forward and back, left and then right, maddened, grief-stricken, terrified.

Something else cracked.

Zola stared at him, that round, balding head cocked, his expression one of confusion. “But Mr. Barnes, we already have him. He is, he is suffering, even now.”

Bucky wrenched to the right, and the collar was crushing his throat, everything was going grey--

And then it let go; the screws that held it in place against his cell’s wall were stripped of threads, and with that little bit of leverage, he was able to wrench again, pulled another bar free.

Zola reached to slap the button that released all the water and the tank started filling. Zola reached again, and that-- that far lever, that would probably kill him, even if he could keep his head above water. It would galvanize the walls, would sending voltage sizzling into the water, amplified by the salt. He would--

Zola collapsed with a slight sigh, slumped over the console.

“Fuck,” Hydra Bob said. He jerked a few times and pulled a tiny knife out from under Zola’s armpit. “How’m I supposed to turn this off?”

***

The chemical Evil Scientist chick was burning him with didn’t seem to have any lasting effects; it hurt, but as far as Tony could tell, that was all that it did. It didn’t even leave any scars or red marks behind. Which somehow didn’t really seem to be fair. Something that hurt so much ought to leave a sign.

As it was, it was useless shit for trying to stage an escape. He couldn’t use it to burn through the ropes. But he did work the ropes looser, continually struggling against them.

And she thought he was weak. He sobbed, coughed, screamed. Told her whatever she wanted to know. Begged her to stop.

She didn’t, she didn’t even go easier on him through some sort of pity, but she did underestimate him.

It wasn’t a show; not really. That fucking stuff hurt, but he might have been just letting his reactions out. No point in pretending it didn’t hurt.

And she underestimated him.

Which let him steal a bottle of the stuff. He had it tucked into the waistband of his pants and prayed to God that he didn’t break it there by accident, because no scars aside, he was pretty sure that much pain, that fast, would overwhelm him.

He didn’t really have time for that shit.

The strap by his left wrist was slowly coming loose. He tugged again, while her back was turned. She had a whole notebook full of his equations, his ideas. She was -- to give her credit -- at least listening to him. She admired his ideas, complimented his thinking, even when she was practically burning his ear off. But it didn’t leave scars. She kept showing him, holding up a mirror.

Tony wasn’t sure why, but it seemed to be an obsession for her. Perhaps it was because of her own scars that she’d had to find some way to hurt, and not have it be visible later.

There were implications in that, if she hadn’t been torturing him, that might have made him feel sorry for her.

Another yank and then… he pulled his hand, folding it as small as he could get it.

Damn it, he was probably going to dislocate his thumb, but--

“I don’t think you’re broken yet, Mr. Stark,” she told him. “Something in the eyes. We’ll just have to try somewhere else.” Her gaze raked him and she smiled, like a dollop of poisoned cream on top of a cake. She was staring…

At his belt.

Tony was all out of time; if she opened his pants, he was going to lose the little bottle of her chemical, she was going to realize he had more freedom than she believed, and that game was going to be over.

He’d given up on Natasha coming to their rescue; if he’d ever really believed it in the first place. He didn’t necessarily think she’d betrayed them, but whatever was going on outside that door, she didn’t have the opportunity.

Tony bent his hand more, pulled, and--

Oh, fuck, that hurt.

He clamped down on that scream. Her hands were on his belt, feeding the leather through the buckle, and she hadn’t done anything, so if he screamed _now_ , she’d know.

“No,” Tony said, as if he’d just realized where she planned to hurt him next. He let himself struggle, trying to twitch away from her crawling hands and eager smile.

He tugged the bottle, got it into his broken hand.

“It’s no good complaining about it now,” she told him. She tugged his belt loose and turned to lay it on the table.

It hurt to move his hand enough to make sure he had a grip on the bottle, but he’d been in more pain, recently.

He lifted the bottle to his mouth, hoped the hell there wasn’t any spillage on the cork.

Gripped the cork in his teeth and yanked.

The top came off just as she was turning and he threw the whole thing in an arcing splash, directly into her face.

There was a long pause, and then she punched him right in the teeth. Tony’s head his the table, his eyes were crossed, his jaw ached.

And she collapsed, shrieking, hands going up to cover her face.

Tony had just managed to get the strap off his right wrist and was straining to reach the ones that held his legs down when someone burst into the room.

Natasha, and a handful of Hydra goons.

Good.

“Ug,” Natasha commented. “Get Madam Hydra to medical. And take him. Tie him up. Use a dozen ropes if you need to.”

Or bad.

Tony fought back, managed to get his feet free, at least, which was good. Kicking was an effective attack.

And-- he rolled off the table, onto the floor and got a hold of the notes Madam Hydra had been taking. A single heave and the notebook went into the fireplace at the far side of the room and burst into flame.

That was good. His ideas weren’t meant for Hydra.

The goons finally pinned him down, which was bad.

“Take him outside,” Natasha said. “Too much trouble, this one. We will just kill him.”

_Very_ bad.

***

Hydra Bob was whimpering by the time he got the tank drained and got Bucky out of it, which seemed somehow unfair, since Bucky was the one freezing and mostly naked with goddamn ice in his hair.

“I never killed anyone before,” Hydra Bob confessed when Bucky glared at him. “I never, I never, he’s dead, and oh, my god, that’s Doctor Zola, and--”

“Shh,” Bucky said. “You didn’t kill him. I did.”

“No, I’m pretty sure there’s blood on my hand.” Hydra Bob held his hand out for Bucky to look, but it was really hard to tell anymore; there was salt water and blood everywhere.

“I told you to,” Bucky said, and then he coughed so hard that he was leaning on the console to hold himself up.

Zola’s clothes weren’t going to fit him, not at all, even if they weren’t drenched in the man’s blood, and while Bucky wasn’t particularly squeamish about it, Hydra Bob was having enough problems coping without having to look at Bucky covered in someone else’s blood.

_Damn him for a green stick._

Shoes were a must; there was no way to fight barefoot. He stripped off Zola’s shoes. “Knife.”

“What?”

“Gimme your knife,” Bucky repeated, and he had to wipe the blade off because Hydra Bob had just sheathed it, blood and all. He had to slice the sides and toe of Zola’s shoes. Damn, the man had little feet. But they would do. He cut strips of cloth from Zola’s trousers to keep the leather tied closed, but it would last, hopefully long enough to get them out of here.

Bucky was just going to have to cope, being mostly naked and freezing. Beggars and choices, after all. Maybe, if he was very lucky, they’d come across a guard or two and he could break some necks and steal some clothes. Hydra Bob might not have too much trouble with dead men if they weren’t bleeding.

Bucky took one last, hate filled look at the console and then ripped out the wiring. Hydra would probably rebuild it. They had innumerable heads, but only a few ideas. But not this one. This one would never function again.

Hydra Bob was shivering, fear reaction, by the time they left Bucky’s torture chamber. It wasn’t fair, and Bucky was half tempted to leave him behind; what sort of fucking goon was he, anyway, but Bucky was holding the man up, and dragging him along.

Later, Bucky would have felt guilty, if he’d left Hydra Bob behind.

“Where are they holding Tony?”

“Closet,” Hydra Bob said.

“They are not,” Bucky protested.

“No. You,” Hydra Bob said, pointing. “Get in the closet. I can’t be seen carrying you around. Crisis center’s just ahead. I’ll send troops to Zola, check the log books. Set a fire, maybe, if there’s time. Create chaos.”

Bucky stared at Hydra Bob with something bordering on respect. “That actually might work.”

“Avoiding battle,” Hydra Bob told him. “It’s what I’m best at.”

The closet -- more a broom cupboard than anything -- was dark and quiet and Bucky let himself sink to the floor, wanting nothing more than to curl up somewhere and sleep for the next eight hours, but he didn’t have time for that. A set of janitor’s coveralls proved to be a murder-free set of clothing. They weren’t comfortable, but they were baggy and zipped up from the front, and covered his arm enough that they might not even be noticed as they escaped.

Chemicals… how about that fire Hydra Bob had been talking about? He stuffed cleaner into empty bottles, rags inside. All he’d need now was a way to start a fire and he had some bombs. He loaded a cleaning cart with them, and an open container of powder soap, that could come in handy in close quarters. Even if it wasn’t lye, and therefore caustic, soap in the face was bad for seeing and breathing.

Two brooms, relieved of their heads, made for temporary blunt weapons. And oh, look at that-- a short utility knife, probably for cutting string and opening parcels, but Bucky wasn’t in a position to be picky. Steel was still steel, and a sharp edge was an advantage.

“What are you doing?”

There were footsteps in the hall, and Bucky got a quick look at the backs of a departing squad of Hydra goons.

“Bein’ prepared,” Bucky said, pushing the rolling cart. “Where’s Tony?”

“They sent him out for execution, but I don’t think he’s dead yet.”

“And the vibranium?”

Hydra Bob shrugged. “No idea, that’s not in my clearance levels.”

“Fuck,” Bucky said, but maybe if he got to Tony first, Tony would have some ideas. All of this would be useless if they didn’t get what they came for. Even killing Zola would only delay Hydra for a little while. “So where’s Tony?”

“Out by the tracks,” Hydra Bob told him. “This way.”

“The tracks, what? Why?” That didn’t make sense, Hydra was often inventive about ways for people to die. Testing poisons or weapons--

“There’s a shooting range,” Hydra Bob said, “or--”

Nevermind, Bucky needed to stop thinking about Tony being dead and get to him before he became that way. “Just go, _go_.”

In the end, they made it outside, and Bucky had to snatch Hydra Bob’s gun away from him, because the man waved it around like an idiot but never actually fired it, and the sights were terrible, but four dead Hydra goons later, and Bucky was standing there, befuddled, while Tony sighed.

“Why are you tied to the damn train tracks?” Bucky demanded. “This is Hydra’s train, this is Hydra’s compound, this is ridiculous, if the force of your body derails the train, it’s going to end up in a mess.”

“Do I look like I was taking damn notes on motivations of certain probably-actually-betraying us Red Room spies?” Tony snapped back, wriggling. “Cut me loose before the train gets here, that’d be good.”

“You know, if you’re going to yell at me, you can just wait for the next rescue,” Bucky said, but he was already getting out a knife and sawing through the cords.

“No, no, you’re already here,” Tony said. “Might as well use you, it’ll take too long to get a new rescue team in.”

Bucky cut through the ropes; there were just a ridiculous number of them. Tony was practically mummified, tied to the tracks like a damn butterfly cocoon. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, tossing another handful of sliced rope aside. This was taking too long, Bucky needed a sharper knife.

“I’ve been better, truthfully,” Tony said, “but I’m glad to see you.” He glanced backward at the sound of a train whistle. “You might want to hurry it up some.”

Fuuuuck. Bucky hacked through another few strands of rope, and then--

They scrambled backward just as the train roared through.

“Oh, this is bad, this is bad,” Hydra Bob was whining. “That’s Schmidt’s personal train!”

“Come on, come on, RUN.”


	15. The Inevitability of Practical Engineering

_Run_? Someone had to be kidding.

Tony couldn’t possibly run. He’d been _tied_ to damn train tracks like he was a damsel in a dime store novel. His fingers were prickling with pins and needles, his legs were dead weight from lost circulation, and he was pretty sure he had a pair of matching bruises, one across his back, and the other across his lower legs from being thrown onto the tracks.

At best, he managed a few staggering lurches away from the train before he fell and had to roll. The train was screeching on the tracks as the engineer applied the brake with reckless abandon and they were going to be damn lucky if the train didn’t jump the tracks anyway and plow them down.

It didn’t, but it was a near thing as far as Tony could tell, and that length of track was never going to be the same again.

The noise was horrific. Tony ended up cringing against the ground, arms wrapped around his head. Bucky was on top of him, using the clockwork arm to shield them from the debris and rocks and track shrapnel that shot out in all directions.

Even so, Tony was peppered with bruises and small cuts by the time it was finally over.

Hydra Bob was shrieking, blood flowing down the side of his face.

“Hey there,” Bucky said, and Tony wasn’t even sure he heard it at all, just felt the pressure of the air against his cheek, saw the shape of the words. “I love you.”

Tony could think of several reasons why Bucky would chose to say that right now, and almost none of them were _good_ , even if all of them were _romantic_.

The first and most important of which was that Bucky didn’t believe they were going to live through whatever was about to happen and wanted to make sure that Tony heard what he already knew. Which, clearly, was unacceptable.

“Prove it,” Tony said.

If the situation hadn’t been so dire, the look on Bucky’s face would have been comical. As it was, the blank incomprehension was just heart-breaking. Right up until Bucky smirked, pulled Tony to his feet. “Ain’t got time for that, sweetheart.”

“You want me to say it back?” Tony demanded. “Then fucking prove it. Get me what I need and get us out of here. I’m not going to break my own heart right before we die. We live, we can talk about this.”

“Why are you both just standing around?” Hydra Bob demanded. “You want to be disintegrated? Did I shift alliances from the lunatics to the lunatic fringe? Come on, we need to _go now_.”

Tony could always count on Hydra Bob to provide enough panic for any situation.

“We can’t leave,” Tony said.

“What? What are you fucking kidding me right now, why can’t we leave? That’s Schmidt, that’s the Red Skull, that’s the guy with the skull for a head. That’s red. You know about that, do you even care about that, he’s got a disintegrating gun, and why are you being stupid--”

“You want to go, Bob,” Tony said, very gently, “you can go. But we haven’t gotten what we came for. If we leave now, I’m dead anyway.”

“What did I do in a past life to deserve this?”

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder. “Look at it this way, Bob,” he said. “Stand with us, and your next life is sure to be better.”

“No, this is not better, this is no guarantee of better, and we’re having a stand off with the Red Skull? Did I mention that--”

Bob shut up with a snap of his jaw, so fast that Tony was worried that he’d bitten off his own tongue, because the man he’d been speaking of made his appearance.

And he did, indeed, have a red skull instead of a face.

It wasn’t quite a skull, not really. An actual skull couldn’t hold eyes, or move, and probably wouldn’t glisten like it had been dipped in blood. Scientifically, it was fascinating. As if the skin had peeled away, leaving everything else behind.

Personally, it was horrific, and the first surge Tony had upon seeing it, once he’d stifled the impulse to gag and vomit, was pity. Profound, unadulterated pity.

He’d heard about the serums, about the formulas that scientists were using to try to extend life, to make people stronger, faster. Bucky had obviously been given some at some point; there was no way a human would live through the kind of reckless surgery needed to attach that clockwork arm. Even Tony had had a small dose, enough to get him through the installation of the arc reactor.

Sometimes people reacted badly, Tony remembered hearing Yinsen say.

“That wasn’t on the list of known side effects,” Tony protested, after all those thoughts passed through his head in a fraction of a second. “How’s he not insane? Doesn’t that _hurt_?”

“ _Constantly_ , Herr Stark,” the Red Skull said. The man leaped from the train, standing in front of them, unarmed, and yet terrifying.

“He’s _Hydra_ ,” Hydra Bob added. “Sanity is a secondary consideration.”

“Great power has always baffled primitive men,” the Red Skull said. “And insanity is often the claim to subvert the truly visionary. I have harnessed the power of the gods, Herr Stark.”

Definitely crazy, Tony decided. But it wasn’t worth the effort of arguing.

“Perhaps,” Bucky yelled, “but most of us call people like you devils, instead.” He yanked out a pistol from the pocket on his coveralls and started shooting.

“You’ll find me slightly less flammable than witches of old,” Red Skull said. He didn’t bother to get behind cover, or even flinch as Bucky filled the air with slugs. He did reach out casually and bat one bullet directly out of the air before it smashed into his mockery of a face, simply disintegrated before they reached him.

“ _Impossible_ ,” Bucky breathed, staring.

“No, I’m afraid it’s quite possible, Herr Barnes, with the power at my disposal, I am invulnerable,” the Red Skull gloated. “Yes, I know who you both are. A failed experiment and the son of a drunken warrior. You will both be unmourned and forgotten. Your time is up.”

***

One of the best things -- and worst things -- about fanatics, Bucky decided, was that they always wanted to take a time out in combat for a good gloat.

Bucky saw the bright flash of Natasha’s hair as she crept forward, one step at a time, staying in the shadows. Red Skull would not have seen her at all, as she kept to his back; and he had not been looking for enemies to come up behind him. Bucky wasn’t sure what sort of communications Hydra had in place -- and how much Red Skull knew about what had been going on at this particular base before his arrival -- but Natasha had been very convincing that she was one of Hydra.

It was possible, Bucky supposed, that she still was one of them. Or, at least, she was still on her own side.

He would know, soon enough, if she took advantage, or if she waited to see how things would play out.

There was nothing quite like a last minute rescue to cement gratitude.

Bucky would have to keep it in mind.

Well, if she were spotted, she could never take their side, and Bucky drew his weapon, fired at Red Skull despite knowing that the shield generator he carried would never let the bullets even close to him; what little Bucky knew about it was that Red Skull could not be harmed by conventional weaponry.

He reloaded, taunted, continued firing. Tony ran for cover.

Red Skull finally drew his own weapon, as if the conversation and battle was boring to him, which it probably was.

The tesseract pistol fired a beam of hot, blue energy that disintegrated living flesh. A concentrated beam could dissolve rock or steel, but it took more energy to produce. Only a few materials were impervious to its power and those materials were rare and difficult to work.

Like the vibranium that Tony needed for his arc reactor.

“Tony,” Bucky yelled, “we need that weapon!”

Which wasn’t entirely true, but if Red Skull was trying to prevent himself from being disarmed, than they had a better chance. Maybe.

Bucky ran, trying to stay ahead of the beam, keep solid objects between himself and the light. He’d watched men dissolve under that force before. He wasn’t sure what happened to them. None of them had lasted long enough to scream, so maybe it didn’t hurt. But dead and disintegrated was still dead.

“What is that thing?” Tony demanded, and then he shrieked as the bit of wreckage in front of him disappeared. He scrambled for better cover. At least there was a few seconds between discharges, but sooner or later, Red Skull was going to get in a lucky shot, and Bucky was willing to bet that it was sooner, rather than later.

Hydra Bob was crouched low, trying not to be seen. “Go, go that way,” Bucky yelled at him. More moving targets were better.

Red Skull drew a bead on them and Bob wasn’t moving, damn it!

“Bob!”

The weapon discharged. _This better work_ , Bucky had time to think before he thrust the clockwork arm into the beam.

It didn’t hurt.

It didn’t.

But watching the metal arm dissolve under Red Skull’s weapon was worse than pain, worse than agony. Bucky screamed.

Several things happened at once and Bucky could only watch as his fingers dissolved, even as he was moving them. The cold, creeping emptiness was moving up his arm and his wrist vanished into flecks of blue light.

Even though the weapon was off, Bucky could barely see anything in its fierce afterglow, his arm was still peeling away into nothingness.

Red Skull shouted in fury.

“Oh, god, Bucky.” Tony was there, and he was frantic. “Hold still, just-- Ow! Fuck.”

“You saved my life,” Bob said, and his eyes were wide and round and astonished. “Why?” Like no one ever expected someone to sacrifice for a minion.

“You’re our friend,” Bucky said. Tony was doing something, and Bucky’s arm was still disintegrating, an inch or two at a time, headed straight for his flesh body and while it was crawling slow, it wasn’t stopping.

He was going to die here.

“Not if I can help it, baby,” Tony said, and Bucky realized he’d said that out loud.

Bob grabbed Bucky’s pistol from where it had fallen when his fingers couldn’t grip it any longer. Uttered a wild war cry, more terrified than terrifying, and charged.

“Hang on, just…”

Tony picked up the shattered remains of Bucky’s arm and threw it. The shoulder piece spun in the air, still covered with crawling blue light, and it was gone before it hit the ground. “Are you okay, honey? It’s…”

Bucky struggled to sit, almost impossible as lopsided as he was, but Tony helped him. “What--”

“It’s over,” Tony said. “It’s all over.”

“That’s not quite true,” Natasha said, “as we are still in middle of Hydra base, but Red Skull is dead--”

“How?”

“I distracted him,” Hydra Bob said, proudly, showing off a bleeding head wound where someone had cuffed him with the butt of a gun, more than likely.

“He threw himself on Red Skull’s mercy,” Natasha explained, rolling her eyes. “And while Schmidt was trying to pry him off, I struck weapon. It caused reaction, and he is gone to whatever fate he has visited on so many.”

“It was _totally_ a distraction,” Hydra Bob said. He was staring half-trepidation, half-offense at Natasha.  

“Hey,” Bucky said. “I believe you.”

“You do? I mean, of course you do,” Bob said, beaming.

“The weapon?” Bucky asked.

“Here,” Natasha offered it to him. “Does not work, I think.”

“That’s not what we’re after anyway,” Bucky said, and that was a relief that it didn’t work, those weapons were dangerous in the wrong hands, and perhaps not much less dangerous in the right ones. He tipped his head at Tony. “The casing--”

“Vibranium?”

“An alloy, probably,” Bucky said. “You’ll need to--”

Bucky could already see the wheels in Tony’s head turning. He tucked the broken weapon in his belt. “We still need to get out of here,” he said.

“Nat, Bob, see to the tracks, make sure they’re clear,” Bucky directed. “The switching station-- yeah, okay, that’s it.” He let Tony help him to his feet, and then aboard the train. Tony disconnected everything except the fuel cart and the engine; they didn’t need to haul whatever freight that Schmidt had been bringing, they’d move faster without it.

“Here, honey,” Tony said, getting him seated inside the engine compartment. “Just rest here, we’ll get us out of here, fast as we can.”

“Thank you,” Bucky said, reaching for Tony’s arm with his only hand, feeling the warmth and human skin. He rubbed his thumb over the inside of Tony’s wrist. “You saved my life. Again.”

“I think it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement by this point,” Tony said. “I save you, you save me, we both save Bob. Nat saves our asses at the last possible second.”

Bucky hummed at that while Tony muttered and flipped switches in the train’s engine, getting the dials and settings to do what he wanted. He still wasn’t sure that Natasha was saving their asses, or her own. She was like a willow, bending to the strongest wind. Natasha, he was well convinced, was on her own side. That just happened to align with theirs for the moment.

Probably fair, since he wasn’t entirely sure they were on her side, either.

He was drawn back to Tony by a soft thumb over his lips. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” Tony told him.

Bucky kissed those fingertips. “We’re not home free yet,” he said, profoundly warmed.

“Close enough,” Tony said.

“We’re clear,” Natasha said, swinging into the engineering compartment. Bob was hesitantly following her, like a stray dog that wanted food, but wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to get kicked instead.

“Let’s roll,” Tony declared, and he yanked the throttle, primed the engine, and got the wheels moving. The train rumbled on the switcher track, sending them back out into the world.

It was over.


	16. Properties of Objects at Rest

Even though they hadn’t been quite home free, Tony figured out a way to rig some explosives as part of the train. They’d all disembarked about a mile outside of the next Hydra way station, and Tony had sent the train-bomb in ahead of them. There might have been something unfair and unsportsmanlike about it, but Tony hadn’t worried about it too much. The sorts of people who would treat prisoners the way Tony and Bucky had been treated weren’t much worth playing fair for.

Natasha had gone in after the train bomb and had liberated some supplies and a car in the confusion, and they had made their way leisurely across Europe. A little more leisurely than Tony would have liked, and things had been getting pretty close to the wire before they finally had made it out of Hydra territory and Tony could take a few days to work a lab set up.

Natasha had driven them into Italy and Tony had introduced himself to the professors at the _Istituto Tecnico Superiore_ in Milan, where he had been able to unlimber the Italian his mother had taught him as a child, long enough to establish his credentials and start work in the smelting facility.

Separating the alloy that Hydra had made from vibranium, palladium, and crystalized germanium back out into the base metals was a tricky process, and it turned out that Tony needed to reorganize the laws of metallurgy in order to manage it. The multi chambered heat condenser that he built in a fugue of engineering and rich, Italian coffee, was a thing of beauty, and Tony might have gloated more about it, except he was dying by inches and didn’t have time.

The decanting process was tricky, and he only really had one shot at it. If it failed, Tony was going to die, and that was as simple as it was.

“So, we’re not going to fail,” Tony muttered.

Tony built up the furnace, set the heat over the decanting condenser. Watched the temperature climb by degrees. He had to be very, very precise. Too much heat, and the vibranium would melt off entirely.

And no sounds. Vibranium was very, very sensitive to sound when it was in its liquid state.

He’d already padded the walls of the forge with cork, it was thick, the air was hot and moist, but it was quiet.

“Here goes everything,” Tony said, and dropped the cylinder of alloy into the decanting chamber. He and Bucky, as well as Bob, and Natasha, too, for all that she played both ends against the middle, had paid dearly for it. Time to see if it was worth it.

He held the temperature steady, working the bellows with gentle, almost loving hands. A degree to either side could be disastrous. He watched the dials as they rotated back and forth, pressure, temperature… and time.

That was everything needed to make diamonds or dross.

Sweat dripped down Tony’s forehead, along his throat, trickled down his chest and spine. He ached in his lungs.

It was hot in the forge, and everything, everything, depended on this. He would not, could not, fail.

He stopped watching the dials, breathed in and out, let his instincts and intellect guide him. He could pilot a clockwork suit of armor by feel, he could do this.

A kind of calm dropped over him like rain, soothing and soft, cooling and sweet.

He pumped the bellows. Turned down the sediment drip. Watched steam rise from the top of his decanter.

_Now._

Tony touched the separator bar. Moment of truth, he thought. Was he the genius he always believed himself to be, or was he the dismal failure that his father had always called him, second rate, knockoff hack?

He situated the mold under the drip, opened the gateway.

A tiny, brilliant strand of liquid light dribbled out into the mold, silver-gold and so hot that Tony could feel it like a wire against his face.

Each drop of the precious, rare metal, star-formed and earth-forged, sang in the air, a single note, until it fell into the mold, the core for Tony’s arc-reactor. His heart would be run on star power.

The mold filled and Tony closed the gate. A little more heat, a second mold.

 _Please be enough_ , he prayed.

The last of the vibranium trickled out and the mold was filled. Tony sealed both of them with platinum corks.

He shut down the forge, daring to breathe for the first time.

The rest of the metals sloshed in the decanting chamber; valuable enough on their own to repay the university for their time and materials. Not that the decanting chamber itself wasn’t of high value, but Tony was probably going to give in to temptation and take it with him. With such a process, there were improvements he could make to a great many of his projects.

Including the one for which he would need to build a second arc-reactor.

“Time to see if it was all for nothing,” Tony said. Sometimes you had to fly before you could crawl. There was no way to test, no way to know, until--

He unbuttoned his shirt, twisted the arc-reactor in its socket and pulled it out. The original core was a charred mess inside him, leaking who knew what poison into his system. Carefully he removed the smoking metal and discarded it, dropped into a lead box that he would seal. If he could.

Everything was in order, he reminded himself. The plans for Bucky’s arm, the distribution of Stark Industries money and properties.

The letter for Bucky.

Bucky would probably never forgive him, if he actually had to read it. If Tony died. If Tony died without saying goodbye. That was what the letter was for, of course, to say goodbye when Tony couldn’t face it.

Not goodbye, Bucky would have said, but until we meet again.

Heaven. Or Hell. Tony didn’t believe in either. This was all the life he had. If this didn’t work, he would never see Bucky again, never touch that perfect, beautiful face, never kiss those honeyed lips.

His heart was stuttering, even now, as he cleaned the core’s socket.

Every breath ached.

He opened the new mold, removed the new core. It was dull silver, hardly weighed a thing. So much "It is a strange fate we should suffer so much fear and doubt… over so small a thing. Such a little thing.” It was a quote, Tony knew, but he couldn’t remember what from. Maybe one of the many stories that his family’s old butler had read to him when he was a child.

He carefully inserted the new core.

If he could have prayed, he would have. But it seemed somehow heretical to do so now. He was just going to trust in his own mind, his own ability, to see him past what should have been his death.

Tony twisted the arc-reactor back into place.

***

“You lost your arm,” Kobik said, crossing her own, perfectly functional arms over her tiny chest and scowling at Bucky. “What did I say about that?’

Bucky raised his right hand to cover a smile. “I know, but it was for a really good cause.”

“How are you s’posed to pick me up if you only got one arm?”

“I’m going to build him a new one,” Tony explained. “And in the meanwhile, I can pick you up, if you need carried.”

Kobik gave Tony a particularly harsh once-over. “I suppose if Bucky says it’s okay.”

“Yeah, go ahead, kiddo,” Bucky said.

Kobik held up her arms and Tony lifted her up to balance the girl on his hip. There was a funny feeling in Bucky’s chest that was both jealousy and heat, that was both soothing and unnerving at the same time. He didn’t necessarily think of Kobik as his, precisely, but there was something very fiercely protective about seeing the two people he cared for most getting along.

 _It’s family,_ a voice from long ago, almost forgotten, said. _You have one again, pal. Don’t waste it._

 _I wasn’t planning on it_ , Bucky told the voice.

“Miss Kobik,” a lanky, muscular man said, walking out into the hotel’s yard, “did we not talk, like more than once, about-- oh.”

“Hey Rhodey,” Tony said, leaning over, the girl still in his arms, to brush his jaw against what must have been the friend that he’d told Bucky about. With Tony’s detour to redecorate the college in Milan, and the time that had taken, Kobik had not been at the church by the time they made it back.

Admittedly, Bucky had been surprised. He wasn’t sure that the church wouldn’t have just put the kid off on the next set through, or that someone wouldn’t have taken her, or even for that matter, that Tony’s friend would have.

“This girl,” Rhodey said, pointing at Kobik, “is more trouble than you ever was. You got to watch her all the time.”

“I… uh…” Tony stammered. And that wasn’t unexpected. “We’re taking it one day at a time, sugarbear.”

“Better than a whole heap of days attacking you at once,” Rhodey said. “This child is a thief, smart as a button, sneaky, deceptive--”

“Adorable, clever, had a tough time,” Tony rounded out. “She’ll stop stealing food when she feels comfortable that no one’s going to starve her to death.”

“I’ll remind you that you said that, when you bailin’ her out of the prison,” Rhodey said. “That said, Pepper’s not likely to forgive me, giving her back to you. She’s gotten attached.”

“Where is Pep?” Tony asked, bouncing Kobik on his hip, and then sputtering when the girl stuck her finger in his ear.

“Taking care of the papers you’ll need if you’re actually going to adopt this child,” Rhodey said. He looked at Tony for a long moment, as if expecting Tony to shove the girl at Rhodey (or Bucky) and run off screaming.

Tony didn’t do that. He cupped his arm around the girl a little firmer, and grinned. “There’s probably worse fates than being adopted by one of the richest men in America.”

“You act like ain’t nothin’ changed, Tony,” Rhodey said, “but you and I know damn well that--”

“We mopped up the bits of Hydra, including Schmidt,” Tony said. “Even now, word’s got to be trickling around to what loyal Shield agents are still in play. I think it won’t be long now before we can take the fight to Stark Industries. And, I got my other problem taken care of, so you know, I can actually be bothered to take my company back and not worry that I’m just going to turn around and die in a few months.”

Bucky make a soft, mournful noise in the back of his throat. He was still angry that Tony had sent him and Natasha on a wild goose chase while he worked on the arc reactor, to get him out from under foot and to take on all the risks while Tony was alone.

And if Tony thought Bucky was over that, had forgiven him for that, Tony was delusional.

That being said, Bucky was pretty damn glad that Tony was alive, and for more reasons than just Tony was planning on making Bucky a new arm.

“And what were you planning on doing about him?” Rhodey turned that gimlet stare on Bucky.

“Do?” Tony huffed. “I’m not going to do anything about Bucky. He’s an adult and on his own recognizance now, no longer addicted to Hydra’s serums, and well rid of that bunch. I don’t need to do anything about him, aside from making him a new arm, because it’s mostly my fault that he doesn’t have his old one anymore, and even if he did, that thing was crap, Rhodey, you should have seen it. I could make a better one in my sleep.”

“Were you plannin’ on ever actually askin’ me to stay?” Bucky wondered.

“Knowing Tones, he wasn’t,” Rhodey said, flatly, and that hurt, it hurt deep somewhere that Bucky couldn’t reach to make it stop aching.

“That’s not--” Tony objected. “No, I… Of course I… but you’ve got your _life back_ , now, Bucky, you can do whatever you want.”

“An’ what if what I want is to stay with you, to have Kobik an’ you an’ our little family, don’t I get no say in that, or are you jus’ putting me out on the curb with the trash?”

Tony inhaled, looking hurt.

“See,” Rhodey said, almost as if he was oblivious to the trouble that he was causing, “what you have to know about Tones, here, my friend, is that he will assume that what people want is nothing to do with him, and as far away as possible. I blame bad upbringing and a shoddy sense of self-worth. Maybe you can help with that, if he’ll unwind long enough to admit how badly he’s making eyes at you.”

“Are you makin’ eyes at me, doll?” Bucky wondered.

“If you haven’t noticed them by now,” Tony said. “Look, I… if you want to stay, we can…”

“Tony,” Bucky said, pulling Tony into his embrace, awkward and one-handed, but it let Kobik form the other side of their circle. “You, and me, and Kobik, that’s what I want. But only if you want it too.”

“And I know enough to know when I’m not needed,” Rhodey said. “My work here is done. When you get your living situation straightened out, come inside and have some damn lunch. And coffee.”

It might have been saying a lot about his feelings for Bucky that Tony squeezed Bucky and Kobik in their little group hug and kissed Bucky’s cheek. “I want you to stay.” He paused. “And also, I want coffee.”

“I’m winnin’ out over the coffee, by the thinnest of thin margins,” Bucky mock-sulked. “You’re happy with this, Kobik?”

“You’re gonna adopt me? I’m gonna be your daughter?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s the plan,” Bucky said.

“Yay!” And she dove out of Tony’s arm, forcing Bucky to catch her before she fell flat on her face. She climbed up him, arms wrapped around his neck. “I want that, too.”

Bucky pushed his face against her shoulder, wiping away sudden tears before anyone could see. “Great, that’s… that’s real good, honey. Let’s uh, go eat, before Tony abandons us both for stimulant.”

“What’s a stimlant?”

“Coffee, my dear child, let me introduce--”

“Milk,” Bucky said, firmly. “She’s a child, she gets milk. Or lemonade. What even is the matter with you.”

“I can see that we’ll have to work extra hard to sneak around Bucky,” Tony told her, “if you want to try coffee.”

“Tony,” Bucky growled.

Both his boyfriend and his soon-to-be-daughter presented him with huge, wide, pleading eyes. Bucky pretended to gruff and scowl, but…

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been happier.

 


	17. The Mark of Permanence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now with art by Monobuu at the bottom! Hydra Bob!

_Three months later_

Kobik threw down the wrench that she was using, leaving Dummy to scramble with one arm and a series of annoyed beeps, to hold up the velocipede engine.

“Uncle Bob!” She flung herself at the former Hydra goon.

Hydra Bob dropped a handful of packages on the ground to scoop her up. “Hey there, kiddo,” Bob said. He wasn’t really Hydra Bob anymore, Tony thought, but he’d been thinking of the man that way for several months now and it was a hard habit to break.

“Bob,” Tony said. He shifted the velocipede engine back into the lift, patted Dummy’s main strut affectionately. “Mrs. Dobelina.” Because of course Amanda had come with him. She did, these days. Probably more because Stark Industries was back in its proper hands -- which was to say, Tony’s -- and whenever Tony threw a party, he did it with panache.

Why do something at all, if you weren’t going to overdo it, that was Tony’s motto. At least as far as parties went.

“Sorry we’re late,” Bob apologized. He was still tending toward the nervous, and Tony hadn’t decided yet if Bob had come the the conclusion that they were friends -- of a sort -- or if he was their minion, and therefore had to go where they told him. In the end, they’d decided it didn’t really matter. If it made him more comfortable to think of them as his bosses, that was fine. He didn’t really seem to act any different. He was pretty nervous around his wife, too.

Bob was just a nervous sort of guy, Tony decided.

“I’m getting adopted,” Kobik said, self importantly.

“Well, assuming your uncle Bob got the papers we need,” Tony said. Because that had been Bob’s job; infiltrate Zemo’s hideaway and recover Kobik’s papers. Tony could have probably done it without Zemo’s papers, even legally. No one was going to object that Kobik, in absence of blood relatives, was better off anywhere else than as a Stark. But they did want the file that Zemo was sure to have.

Kobik, they’d discovered, was no ordinary child, and Tony would have probably guessed that she’d been tampered with at some point, even without her occasional nightmares. But having the excuse that they needed the papers for the adoption to go through meant Kobik was excited, and Bob had something useful to contribute.

Not, Tony understood, that it had been all that difficult for Bob to run his con-game. No one expected Hydra goons to have any personal initiative. Bob had walked in the safe house, said he was on guard duty, and rummaged through the files until he found what he was looking for, left at the end of the shift.

It could turn the whole Hydra war, having a back door into their operations.

On top of killing Schmidt, which Tony would have been more enthused about if it wasn’t for the whole cut off one head bullshit. There were already snakes competing for the highest positions, and eventually one of them was going to be stronger and smarter -- if not weirder or uglier -- than Schmidt.

“Of course I got them, they’re right--” Bob started to pat at his clothes and pockets, looking steadily more desperate, until Amanda pulled the packet out of her purse, smacked Bob in the back of the head with them, and then dropped them in his hand. “I didn’t even need the backup.”

“Backup? What backup?” Tony wondered.

“The Black Widow,” Bob said, tentatively. “You did--”

“Oh, sure, sure,” Tony said, which was a lie, because they most decidedly _didn’t_ send Natasha to keep an eye on Bob, but it was likely she’d taken it on herself. That being said, if Bob had actually spotted her, it meant she wanted to be seen.

So she was probably still on their side, at least until a better paying job came along.

Tony really needed to think of something for her to do that would keep her out of trouble, long term.

Not today, however.

“Where’s your Daddy?” Bob asked Kobik, not handing the papers over to Tony.

Technically, since Tony and Bucky were only listed on paper as being business papers, and Tony was going to be Kobik’s adopted father, the papers should have gone to _him_ , but Bob had his ideas of what was proper. As far as Bob was concerned, Bucky was Kobik’s father.

“Right here,” Bucky yelled. He was on the roof, finishing up the repairs to the shop’s ventilation systems after what Tony considered a small, somewhat explosive accident, and Bucky referred to as this week’s unmitigated disaster.

That was hardly fair, but when Tony had tried to get Rhodey to explain the difference between a little bitty, barely noteworthy accident and an actual unmitigated disaster, Bucky had threatened to bar the door to the workshop for a _week_ if Tony couldn’t get himself under control, they had a child underfoot, Tony, be reasonable.

Tony was not being unreasonable, really. Kobik _liked_ working in the shop.

“Yes, that’s what worries me,” Bucky had said, and that had been that.

Mother-hen, Tony thought, mock-scowling up at his boyfriend. “Get down here and say hi like a normal person,” he yelled up.

“Sorry t’ inform you,” Bucky said, conversationally, dropping the two stories onto the ground in a heart-stopping jump. He landed lightly on his toes and grinned, “but there’s no normal people ‘round these parts.”

“Show off,” Tony muttered.

Bucky extended his hand for Bob to shake, which was, in and of itself, hilarious, as Bob tried to juggle the paperwork, Kobik, and shake Bucky’s hand without gawking at the new, voltic-powered arm that Tony had built. A gorgeous piece of work, if Tony did say so himself (and he did. Frequently. Because he was just that damn talented, and he wanted to have it acknowledged. Also, the arm was sexy, and the man attached to it was even more desirable. Tony might have an urge to show that off, too.)

“Good to see you again, Bob,” Bucky said. “Come on in th’ house. Knowin’ Tony, he ain’t think to offer refreshments. Amanda, you’re as lovely as a flower, come on inside, get out of this sun.”

Tony rolled his eyes. Bucky was already bringing the Dobelina’s into the house, getting them biscuits and tea (or something stronger than tea, in Bob’s case) and settled. They were planning to host Hydra Bob and his wife for a few days as they relocated from England to New York. It seemed safer to have them a little closer, in case Hydra ever figured out that Bob was the mole in their operation.

Pepper and Rhodey were already installed in one of the guest suites, and later that afternoon, they’d all make a big production of going down to City Hall, where a judge would hear their final case and Tony would officially be signed over as Kobik’s guardian.

Tony smiled as he pulled the door shut behind them. Who would have thought, even six months ago, that he’d be settled with a partner and a child? Next thing, he’d be raising kittens in the kitchen and holding interviews for a nanny.

Bucky gravitated to his side, like a wayward moon, and slid his arm around Tony’s lower back. Tony curled up into the warmth of the man who was his husband in all but name, his partner, his best friend.

“Happy, sweetheart?” Bucky asked him, pressing his lips against Tony’s temple.

“Happy as I can be,” Tony admitted.

And he was.

Later, there would be trouble and strife; they still had to figure out what had happened to Kobik, the extent of her abilities, and how much it affected her. There were Hydra agents still out there.

But for the moment, there was love and light, family and friends.

Tony was happy.

***

Bucky leaned against the door to his daughter’s -- his daughter! -- bedroom. Tony had just finished reading her some bedtime stories. Kobik was insatiable for stories. She never wanted the same one twice, but was always seeking more and new and different. And then asking questions about the stories, which meant Tony was constantly making up new and different answers.

“Why did Goldilocks eat the porridge? Obviously, it was someone else’s?” Kobik had been indignant on behalf of the bears and thought the bears ought to eat Goldilocks to teach her a lesson.

“I didn’t dare tell her that in some versions, they do,” Tony had confessed, laughing.

“All settled?” Bucky asked, bringing himself back to the present.

“She’s asleep for now,” Tony said, lowering his voice. He turned the lamp’s wick all the way down until the room was lit in a soft, bluish glow. Kobik didn’t like the dark.

Bucky didn’t blame her, either.

“We’ll see how long it lasts.”

Kobik had been excited to have all her adult friends at home; even Clint had made the trip, although it was more because Tony promised him an upgrade to some of his trick arrows and the timing worked out than anything else. She was starting school in a few days, and Bucky rather hoped she’d bond with some people in her own age group.

But her excitement meant she’d been very reluctant to go to bed.

The house was almost entirely dark and quiet; when the adults had finally excused themselves, Kobik had left Tony take her off to her own room.

“Now that I’ve got you alone,” Tony said, pressing into Bucky’s side, one eyebrow going up with _intent_. “You want to tuck _me_ into bed?”

“Hmmm,” Bucky pretended to consider it while Tony gave him a truly epic pout. Thrusting his bottom lip out like that, though, Bucky was helpless against it. He leaned down and kissed Tony’s pleading mouth, licking and nipping at that lip. “Maybe.”

Tony was adorable when he was pretending to be sad, all doe-eyed and trembling chin. Bucky took pity on himself; trying to resist that look for long didn’t seem worth it for something he wanted to do anyway. With a quick scoop, he lifted Tony off his feet, cradled him to Bucky’s chest like a new bride being carried over the threshold. “This what you had in mind, princess?”

“You are quite ridiculous,” Tony accused him, which was fine, since he wasn’t struggling. That would be awkward; attempt to be romantic and end up dumping his beloved on the floor. Tony would never let him forget it.

In the door and Bucky kicked it closed behind them. He let Tony down, slowly, feeling each inch of him drag, delicious and tempting all at once. Tony opened his mouth to say something, and Bucky silenced him in the best possible way, by kissing him thoroughly. Tony answered that argument by melting against him, body quivering with need. A few nudging steps backward and they were on the bed, kissing and touching and caressing until Tony was laying flat on the mattress and Bucky was poised over him, dizzy with his racing pulse.

Bucky’s senses were full of Tony, the soft sounds he made, the way he smelled of motor oil, coffee, and faint burnt tang of voltics. Warm, masculine, perfect. Rough fingers and soft, warm palms. Bucky’s lips drank their fill of Tony’s mouth, tasted his skin. He didn’t want to stop, never wanted to stop kissing Tony, not even for breath or food.

His hands moved with purpose, stripping off the rough workshirt and trousers, peeling the fabric away and revealing that olive skin underneath. Each inch revealed was another place for Bucky to kiss and caress. By the time Bucky got his hands on Tony’s cock, Tony was writhing wantonly, and he made a perfect, utterly lewd noise.

“You’ll have to be quiet,” Bucky told him, teasing one finger around the ridge. “We have guests.”

“Guests who know exactly what I do with you in this huge bed of ours,” Tony pointed out. “Or if they haven’t figured it out, I feel sorry for them.” Tony nipped at the shell of Bucky’s ear and then breathed warm air into it, a sensitive spot that sent him through the ceiling and he made a bit of noise himself.

He paused, stripped off his clothes; wanting nothing more than that skin to skin contact, even if touching and kissing was all they did, feeling Tony’s lithe, muscular body under his was pleasure enough for a lifetime.

Tony, it seemed, had other plans, and he slithered down Bucky’s body as soon as the last piece of clothing hit the floor, his mouth depositing eager kisses down Bucky’s chest, along the line of his hip, just under his navel. His hands were in Tony’s hair by the time that slick, wet mouth touched Bucky’s dick. Tony’s hands slid up Bucky’s thighs, fingers gently shifting along Bucky’s balls. His tongue was downright wicked, doing things to Bucky, licking and sucking and tasting. Bucky was lost in a haze of driving, spiraling need and emotion.

“Christ, what are you doin’ down there?” Bucky demanded when a particularly delicious combination made him arch up with need.

“Loving you,” Tony said, pulling off with an obscene slurp. “Want me to stop?”

“No, never stop,” Bucky told him, chest aching with emotion. Tony played him like a flute, mouth moving up and down with abandon, and Bucky was writhing and moaning, hands clenching in the cool sheets.

“Wait, wait, wait…” Bucky reached for Tony, so close to the edge it was painful.

“You said not to stop,” Tony pointed out with another flick of his tongue. “I’m only doing as you said.”

“Son of a-- come here, you,” Bucky said, dragging Tony up and kissing the taste of himself right out of Tony’s mouth. “I want you with me, every step of the way.”

“I don’t know,” Tony hesitated. “Might be fun to make you come once, and then work for another.”

Bucky went up in flames at the thought. “Maybe so,” he agreed, “but not tonight.” He reached for the bottle of oil they kept near the bed. “Tonight, I want you under me, want to--”

“Oh, well, all right, I’ll make the sacrifice,” Tony mock-grumbled, spreading his legs and cradling Bucky between them, knees up. He slid his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, blinking pointedly. “I’ll just… close my eyes and think of England, shall I?”

“If that’s what does it for you,” Bucky said, agreeably. He poured a drizzle of oil onto his fingers and smeared the slippery substance over Tony’s hole. Tony made with the pretense of indifference for only a short while before he was gasping for breath and shaking with need.

By the time Bucky was hovering over him, safe in the cradle of Tony’s thighs, Tony was moaning every few breaths.

“Needy little thing,” Bucky accused, rubbing against that muscle with the head of his cock, teasing them both.

“If I admit you’re right, will you get in me?” Tony hooked his legs around Bucky’s waist, pulling him down, heels pushing into Bucky’s lower back.

“Tell me you love me,” Bucky said, more plea than demand.

Tony’s face went vulnerable, all open and loving, eyes wide and sparkling. Bucky knew it, even before Tony said it. “I love you,” he said. “Always.”

Bucky nuzzled at Tony’s mouth, then pushed in, slow and steady, waiting for Tony’s body to loosen around him. Tony was slick with sweat, his body hot and needy, and finally, Bucky moved, sliding in to the hilt. Everything else in the world faded away until there was only the two of them, only the feelings between them. Bucky thrust and Tony rolled his hips to meet him. Their moans and cries mingled together, heedless of anyone now, hearing them. Tony was babbling, encouraging, a litany of love, desire, praise coming out of his mouth and Bucky kissed the words away, swallowing them, taking them in.

Tony got a hand between them, working himself in time with Bucky’s thrusts, each jolt of sensation echoed. Tony clenched and strained and shuddered, a hot bloom of seed splattered on Bucky’s chest. Bucky thrust, once, twice, a half dozen, and then followed Tony into oblivion; everything in him tightening up until it released in a single moment of bliss.

When he came back to himself, Tony was carefully squirming out from under Bucky’s weight. He didn’t go far, just enough that he could cuddle against Bucky’s side.

“I love you,” Bucky told him.

“Just a little, at least,” Tony said, sleepy.

“More than a little,” Bucky told him, kissing his temple, his cheek, the tip of his nose.

“Some,” Tony allowed.

“If you don’t stop that, I’m gonna have to prove it to you again,” Bucky threatened, even if his cock was flaccid and completely uninterested at the moment. Give it time, Bucky knew, he’d be ready again. Especially in the time it would take to get Tony jittery and overstimulated.

“No, no, anything but that,” Tony protested, laughing. “You love me a lot, I know. I know!”

“Sounds like you might need convincing,” Bucky said, rolling him over.

“I’m convinced.”

“Good.”

Bucky settled with Tony spooned against him, Bucky’s nose tucked in the soft hair at the back of Tony’s neck. He would rest, just a moment, then get up and fill the ewer with water so they could clean up. And then, maybe, he’d prove it to Tony again anyway.

Just for fun.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, as they say, that's all folks. Thanks for sticking this out, I know it's a strange concept. Steampunk is a very niche reading area, and I'm happy y'all enjoyed it.
> 
> I do have an idea for a second novel-length fic, which would involve Kobik and her abilities, and also we might find out what happened to Steve, with Zemo as the main bad-guy, more of Tony's crazy inventions, and of course, all the love with Tony and Bucky. (probably also cameos from Hydra Bob and Rhodey).
> 
> Let me know if this AU is something you want to see more of, or if Steampunk's just not really your thing. I have some other ideas kicking around, so we'll see what happens. As always, love every one of you!


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